South Sudanese pray for a peaceful future

Volunteers cleared away the rubbish and worshippers offered prayers for its future on Sunday, after South Sudan was feted a day earlier by world leaders as it celebrated independence.

On Sunday, the world’s newest state began the tough task of nation building.

“It is a big, big job but we want to make our new capital look beautiful,” John Goi Deng, a youth mobiliser, said, as he looked out at the thousands of paper flags and plastic bottles that littered Juba’s Freedom Square, the site of Saturday’s ceremony.

A handful of teenagers collected the rubbish across the vast dirt field where visitors and southerners witnessed the declaration of independence and saw the new country’s flag raised.

First, you clean

“This is the beginning of building the country. You first have to clean and then you can start to build,” Deng said.

The challenges ahead are truly daunting for one of the poorest countries on earth that was left in ruins after five decades of devastating conflict between southern rebels and successive Sudanese governments.

“Joy at independence is tempered by ongoing troubles in the south and north alike,” said Zach Vertin, Sudan analyst with International Crisis Group, in a recent report.

“On the UN’s Human Development Index — a measure of overall quality of life and development — Sudan ranks 154th out of 169,” Vertin added, in the report that was co-authored by Sudan expert Aly Verjee.

In addition to the chronic lack of basic infrastructure, the government of South Sudan has to attend to violent conflict within its borders, which has killed more than 1,800 people so far this year.

It also has to resolve some highly sensitive issues with Khartoum that were not agreed on prior to independence.

At the Juba Christian Centre Pentecostal Church, pastor Marcelo Obwoma was preparing to preside over a special thanksgiving service that he said the new country’s President Salva Kiir would attend.

“So many people are coming, as we are giving thanks on this special day, the beginning of our independence,” Obwoma said.

“We are praying for guidance for the government so the country remains peaceful and can grow.”

Standing on the steps of the church, South Sudanese lawmaker Julius Moilinga said:

“All through the years (of fighting), people were praying for peace and independence, so now we have to come to church to thank him for giving it to us and ask for his help.”

“It is one thing to achieve independence but it is another thing to walk together towards establishing a working country,” Moilinga said.

Across town, construction worker Aloysious Keny, 36, said: “When I got up this morning, we began celebrating again. Yesterday was the public ceremony and today is for the relatives and family.”

He said that despite the many challenges the country faces, for the first time he now felt confident enough to bring his children back to Juba from neighbouring Uganda, where the family had spent over a decade living as refugees.

And while most Sudanese were celebrating the independence, Lorna Merekaje was celebrating double victory.

Clad in yellow, one of the four colours in the south Sudanese flag, Merekaje is a South Sudanese educated in Kenya and married to a Kenyan. Only a year ago, she celebrated the promulgation of the new constitution.

“It is a wonderful feeling; even the air we breathe is different. We didn’t know we would live to see independence and now we hope that the good feeling will translate into continuous peace.

“We thank those who have come here to celebrate with us; they should continue praying for us,” said Merekaje, a member of the civil society who travelled from Nairobi.