The historical background
The history of the modern state of South Sudan is marked with civil wars and conflicts, largely affected the development of basic infrastructures such as roads, education, agriculture, health and social well-being leading to gross human suffering throughout the generations.
In 1820 the people of Southern Sudan started struggle to resist and liberate themselves from the external powers. The colonial and post-independence era was marked by the emergence of power struggle amongst northern-dominated regimes in Khartoum, this resulted to decades of civil war in Sudan with subsequent effect of gross violation of human rights, displacement of large population, poor infrastructure development (schools, hospitals and roads), disruption of the agriculture sector and socio- economic systems; leading to food shortage, cattle raids and inter-tribal conflicts due to scarce resources especially in the South.
This situation made the Southerners to revolt in the first Anyanya civil war and the second civil war led by the former rebel group; the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). The 22 years of civil war between the SPLA/M and the Khartoum Government finally led to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Naivasha Kenya in 2005. This created a new era of hope for restorations, giving birth to the formation of interim Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) in 2005 and subsequently, the people of Southern Sudan voted in the popular referendum to decide whether to remain in united Sudan or to separate to form independent republic of South Sudan. In the referendum, overwhelming majority of over 98% of the population voted for separation which granted the independence of the republic of South Sudan in 2011.
South Sudan has moved gallantly through the challenges to independence and it is now the newest sovereign country in the world. Although Islamic religion was made to be a state religion imposed through sharia law, but 94% of the South Sudanese are Christians or traditionalist, throughout the 50 years of struggle which was often considered a liberation fight for religious freedom, the church leadership role working for peace was not compromised, they provided full humanitarian support lobbied from the international communities, as well engaged as peace partners.
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Context
The level of inter-Religious cooperation of different churches in South Sudan remained one of the stable and strong institutions in the country working for peaceful communities’ coexistence. The relevant institutions includes; education, health and agriculture, though Christianity had realized major achievements since the colonial period and independence in creating relative peace and love among communities, mass challenges continue to face the current Christians of South Sudan, these include; war and conflicts, lack of permanent structures for church buildings, in adequate capacity building for local church administrators at the parishes, lack of social support for the needy specially the war victims; the orphans and widows among others.
The conflict has undermined sustainable livelihoods due to shortage of human basic needs which also hampered the need to reach and preach the gospel to the needy.
During the two decades of Civil war of over 50 years, culture faded causing generation gap, illiteracy due to poor education system and infrastructure, poor health and extreme poverty among the masses in South Sudan. Faith based institutions are still very weak and most of the communities in South Sudan rely on customary or traditional justice for their rights, administered by tribal chiefs and leaders or elders who lack faith in Christianity and basic formal education and human rights knowledge.
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