In South Sudan, delays in the formulation of a new national constitution have led to growing public concern. My Mother Will Not Come to Juba: South Sudanese Debate the Constitution is the record of a series of public lectures and discussions held at the University of Juba in March 2013. The launch of the report, which is available for free download, featured many of the participants in the…

John Ryle, Executive Director of the Rift Valley Institute, spoke on 'Slavery in the Sudans: Human Rights and Local Moral Worlds' at a conference on The Arts of Human Rights sponsored by the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Witwatersrand (WISER) and Bard College, New York. The three-day event featured presentations by speakers including the novelist Nuruddin Farah…

On 23 March, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, speaking to the United Nations Security Council, declared: “There can be no real dialogue for as long as South Sudan is ravaged by fighting.” “All parties must respect an immediate cessation of hostilities,” he said. “As President, Salva Kiir is responsible for taking the first step – and others must follow”.

The annual general meeting of the Sudan Studies Society of the United Kingdom took place in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies on 13 September. The event was held in association with the Royal African Society. The day-long programme featured a panel on South Sudan with speakers including RVI Fellows Douglas H. Johnson, the historian of South Sudan and Rosalind Marsden, former…

More than seven hundred people attended a lecture on federalism at Juba University on Saturday 5 July. The lecture was delivered by Rift Valley Institute Fellow Douglas H. Johnson and organised by RVI Fellow Luka Biong Deng, formerly Minister in the Office of the President. Dr Johnson’s talk was introduced by John Akec, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Juba. Panellists included Lam Akol,…

The conflict in South Sudan has entered its fourth year and the situation continues to deteriorate for many desperate civilians. There is an urgent need for the citizens of the East African region to impress upon their leaders the urgency and unacceptability of the situation and to call them to action to end the suffering. This week on ALD, we focus on the crisis in South Sudan. Julie Gichuru…

For Major-General Herbert Kitchener, the British assault in southern Sudan on September 2nd 1898 was an exercise in both conquest and revenge. 13 years after Britain’s Governor-General in Sudan had been killed in Khartoum, this latest operation had involved years of preparation, including the development of both rail and steamship supply routes and extensive training for British and Egyptian…

For six years rebel forces in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states (the Two Areas) have been battling the Sudanese government. Round after round of negotiations mediated by the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa have failed to bring an end to what is a continuation of the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005) fought by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement against the Sudanese…

In July Durham played host to a meeting of curators and researchers concerned with the heritage of material culture taken from the lands now comprising South Sudan. These include items of jewellery, clothing, furniture, weaponry and sculpture bought, bartered or stolen sometime in the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. Some of these articles were presented by chiefs to their colonial…

On 10 January 2014, three weeks after the South Sudan crisis began—as peace talks stalled in Addis Ababa and the death toll continued to grow—representatives of South Sudanese civil society met in Nairobi to discuss the crisis, its historical roots, and the possibility of peace. The event was held under the auspices of the Sudd Institute, the South Sudan Law Society (SSLS), the Gurtong Trust,…