I reached the last pages of a dusty and never-opened file in the National Archive of South Sudan when I found this letter. The aging generator was loudly puffing in the courtyard... I opened the file titled Upper Nile Province 49.B.2. Vol. II (“Passports, Visas, and Permits to Enter Southern Sudan”)…. On the last page, a guy was…addressing the…

The president of South Sudan said his guards fended off renegade soldiers who were attempting to overthrow the government, a clash that exposes the oil-rich nation's fragmented and fragile political situation. Dressed in military fatigues, President Salva Kiir told reporters in the capital city of Juba on Monday that his forces were in control…

The president of South Sudan said his guards fended off renegade soldiers who were attempting to overthrow the government, a clash that exposes the oil-rich nation's fragmented and fragile political situation. Dressed in military fatigues, President Salva Kiir told reporters in the capital city of Juba on Monday that his forces were in control…

In a recent article for the Journal of African History, DRC specialist René Lemarchand writes that 'there can be no doubt about Jason Stearns’s impressive command of l’histoire évènementielle, a fact amply confirmed by the excellence of the several monographs produced by the author under the auspices of the Rift Valley Institute'. He describes…

In a recent article for the Journal of African History, DRC specialist René Lemarchand writes that 'there can be no doubt about Jason Stearns’s impressive command of l’histoire évènementielle, a fact amply confirmed by the excellence of the several monographs produced by the author under the auspices of the Rift Valley Institute'. He describes…

Jok Madut Jok, former Undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport of the Government of South Sudan, discusses the National Archive of South Sudan with Douglas H. Johnson, former Deputy Archivist and leading historian of the country.

Somali author Nuruddin Farah discusses his writing—and its relation to Somalia and the African condition—with Tom Odhiambo of Nairobi University. The interview was filmed for the Rift Valley Review.

Congolese colonial subjects have vivid memories of the grotesque and spectacular violence inflicted upon them by Europeans during Leopold’s reign of the Congo Free State: ‘Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mother and sisters.’ Witnesses of events in 1953 mention sentries ‘amusing themselves while pounding the insides of women’s…

The subject of the Comprehension test in the school certificate exam this year was cattle-raiding. Cattle-raiding is a specialty round here, so it was much easier for the students than last year’s test, when the subject was the fifth and seventh Pan-African Congress. A Ministry of Education directive apparently says that no students should be…

RVI Fellow Mary Harper of the BBC World Service, Nuur Sheekh, Coordinator of the RVI Nairobi Forum and Sitara Jibreen of the International Committee of the Red Cross discuss the compromises made by aid agencies operating in al-Shabaab-controlled areas of Somalia.