ConflictVoice

Powerful slide show with audio from Jeffrey Gettleman at The New York Times on the challenges facing South Sudan a year before the referendum.

Save the Children - Major conflict could return to Southern Sudan unless there is urgent international action to save the peace

Hi everyone,

2010 is an important year for Sudan. Elections are scheduled to be held in April and the referendum where the Southern Sudanese decide whether or not to stay part of Sudan is only a…

The next 12 months will be critical for the future of Sudan.

As the country marks the fifth anniversary of the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a devastating civil…

Watch this film - Last year saw a major upsurge in violence in southern Sudan, with more than 2,500 people killed and over a quarter of a million displaced. In December 2009, Oxfam spoke to communities living in Western and Central Equatoria and Lakes State, who have faced violence and displacement.

Finding enough food to have one meal a day is proving a daily challenge for 45 year-old Rebecca Konjo.

The mother-of-thirteen is hunting for wild grass to eat with three of her young children, collecting plants in metal pans.

“We should not have problems, because we are in peace”, she says.  “But we have no food and the raiders destroyed everything.  Where can we go?  What can the government do?  We are with God. We just pray that peace will come.”

BBC News - Ten international aid groups say a 2005 peace deal in Sudan is on the verge of collapse and that the world must act now to prevent renewed conflict.

On Saturday, there will be exactly a year left to prevent the return of a conflict that was once the longest-running in Africa – Sudan’s north-south war, which claimed about 2 million lives. With elections due this year and 365 days left until the crucial referendum on independence for the south, concern is growing among analysts, advocacy groups and NGOs working in Sudan that the spectre of widespread conflict is once again a reality.