South Sudan becomes independent

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan became an independent country, with Salva Kiir as its first president and Juba as its capital. It was the world's newest state, and it joined the United Nations a few days later as the 193rd member. Independence followed a referendum held in January 2011 in which about 98.8 percent of voters chose separation from Sudan, with a turnout of more than 97 percent. Crowds in Juba celebrated the end of what many called the longest civil war in Africa.¹²⁴

The vote came from decades of conflict between the Arab-led government in Khartoum and the mostly African, Christian and animist south. Sudan's 1956 independence left the south feeling excluded, and two civil wars, from 1955 to 1972 and from 1983 to 2005, killed about two million people and displaced millions more. The southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement, led by John Garang, fought for autonomy and later for a united Sudan reformed on fair terms. Violence against civilians in Darfur from 2003 and Khartoum's record there deepened southern distrust.¹

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005 ended the war and granted the south six years of self-rule, followed by a referendum. Garang died in a helicopter crash in July 2005, weeks after becoming vice president, and Kiir took over. After independence the new state faced huge challenges, with oil as its main source of income and few roads, schools or hospitals. In December 2013 a political split between Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar turned into a new civil war that killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, and the peace deal of 2018 has remained fragile.¹