By Zuko Komisa
On Friday the 9th of July, South Sudan commemorated eleven years of independence.
South Sudan attained independence in 2011, and from that day South Sudanese from all over the country and the world met up annually on the day at the capital city of Juba to celebrate the birth of the new nation, the Republic of South Sudan.
Point of View with Phemelo Motene had a conversation with Advocate Sipho Mantula, African Affairs Analyst about this significant milestone and the challenges the African nation is still facing and the birth of the African Union.
LISTEN TO THE FULL CONVERSATION HERE:
According to Vatican News, South Sudan still experiences problems beyond its independence.
The publication reports that more than 300,000 children are anticipated to experience the deadliest type of malnutrition and could die if they do not receive treatment, according to the UN, which worries that 1.4 million South Sudanese children will have acute malnutrition in 2021, the highest number since 2013.
Additionally, with 2.8 million children not in school, South Sudan has the highest percentage of out-of-school children in the world as well as a high dropout rate.
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Advocate Sipho Mantula, shared how nation-building in South Sudan never really got going.
He spoke about how in December 2013, after two years of hard-won independence, a civil war broke out an incident which denied the nation the chance to form its foundations.
The nation’s initial elections were supposed to take place in 2015, but the war delayed that.
In 2015, a peace agreement was reached, however it fell apart in 2016. So far since independence, no elections have been held.
Mantula, also shared how the Africa Union was formed, considering that this year marks 20 years of its existence.
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