The headline gives the gist of a united message the leaders of the churches in South Sudan sent out this Christmas to their congregations and to the nation’s politicians in response to the conflict that has recently arisen in this the world’s youngest and pre-dominately Christian country.
On the July 9, 2011 The Republic of South Sudan came into existence. Until then the citizens of that country had either lived abroad or as a part of the Islamic State of Sudan.
Since independence was granted in the mid-1950s a civil war has been going on for 39 of those years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 2.5 million people. The civil war occurred as the south tried to break away from the north and the north sought to reassert its control over that part of the country.
