Let’s “celebrate our diversity”: South Sudanese Bishop Urges Cultural Dance for Peace, Nation-Building

Bishop Hiiboro also urged South Sudanese to preserve their traditions and allow the country’s cultural diversity to strengthen relationships among its communities.

“Let us preserve our cultures, learn from one another, and celebrate our diversity, not as a reason to divide us, but as a gift that makes South Sudan stronger and more beautiful,” the Local Ordinary of the CDTY since his Episcopal Consecration in June 2008 said.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but a political struggle between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his then Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar, developed into civil war in December 2013 after Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup, an allegation Machar denied, with the violence subsequently spreading along ethnic lines.

War erupted in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his then Vice President, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup—an allegation Machar denied.

A September 2018 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine study estimated that South Sudan’s civil war caused about 382,900 excess deaths between December 2013 and April 2018. Approximately half resulted directly from violence, while the remainder were attributed to the conflict’s indirect effects, including disease and malnutrition. 

By early 2018, the war had also displaced some two million people within South Sudan and forced another 2.5 million to seek refuge in neighbouring countries

In September 2018, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, establishing a power-sharing framework aimed at ending the country’s civil war. 

However, key provisions, including the unification of the armed forces, adoption of a permanent constitution and holding of elections, remained unimplemented.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the arrest of Machar and other opposition leaders in 2025 effectively dismantled the unity government. Renewed fighting in Upper Nile and Jonglei subsequently displaced hundreds of thousands of people and restricted humanitarian operations. 

By 2026, the Council reported, some 10 million South Sudanese needed humanitarian assistance, more than two million remained internally displaced, and parts of Upper Nile and Jonglei were experiencing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.