Crisis in South Sudan: The World's Youngest Nation Struggles to Survive

  • People arrive to Minkammen, South Sudan having crossed over the Nile River by night, Jan. 9, 2014. Thousands of exhausted civilians are crowding into the fishing village of Minkammen, a once-tiny riverbank settlement of a few thatch huts 20 miles southwest of Bor. Some say they had spent days hiding out in the bush outside Bor as gunmen battled for control of the town, which has exchanged hands three times in the conflict, and remains in rebel control.
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  • People unload the few belongings on Jan. 9, 2014 at Minkammen, South Sudan that they were able to bring with them to the camps.
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  • People arrive to Minkammen, South Sudan on Jan. 9, 2014 having crossed over the Nile River by night.
    Nichole Sobecki—AFP/Getty Images
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  • People unload the few belongings on Jan. 9, 2014 at Minkammen, South Sudan that they were able to bring with them to the camps.
    Nichole Sobecki—AFP/Getty Images
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  • People arrive to Minkammen, South Sudan on Jan. 9, 2014 having crossed over the Nile River by night.
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  • People stand at the gates of a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 9, 2014. Over 17,000 people are living at the base, with new arrivals every day, due to ongoing conflict in the world's youngest nation.
    Phil Moore—AFP/Getty Images
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  • South Sudanese men lay down between makeshift shelters in a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 9, 2014.
    Phil Moore—AFP/Getty Images
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  • Three children walk through a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, on Jan. 9, 2014.
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  • A South Sudanese man sits in the shell of an old bus in a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 9, 2014.
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  • A monument for fallen peacekeepers stands amidst makeshift tents in a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan base in Juba, on Jan. 9, 2014.
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  • Women and children crowd around a water point at dusk, in Minkammen on Jan. 8, 2014.
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  • A woman covers her face as a UN helicopter takes off from Minkammen, where people receive food aid and other items from a recent International Committee of the Red Cross delivery on Jan. 8, 2014.
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  • People go about their daily life in Minkammen, 16 miles south of Bor, on Jan. 8, 2014.
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  • A woman holds her child receiving treatment at a makeshift clinic at an internally displaced persons' camp run by the United Nations in Juba on Jan. 7, 2014.
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By TIME Photo

Nearly a month after fighting erupted in the capital, Juba, pushing nearly 200,000 people from their homes, the political power struggle between loyalists of President Salva Kiir and his ex-deputy Riek Machar rests on a knife’s edge, threatening to spiral into a deadly ethnic conflict. The world welcomed South Sudan’s birth in July 2011, but if thousands of peacekeepers and pressure from superpowers can’t influence a truce at the negotiating table in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it may end up lamenting its tragic collapse.
– Andrew Katz

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