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Climate Change and Violent Conflict Part 2 - South Sudan




Climate Change and Violent Conflict Part 2 – South Sudan

Source: Reuters 

Floodings in a country full of violent conflict history
Last week the government of South Sudan declared a state of emergency as widespread flooding has affected almost a million people according to the UN, causing immediate displacement of hundreds of thousand people (United Nations, 2019; Anyadike,2019).  Although flooding and heavy rainfall is normal in South Sudan this time of year, the scope this year is, especially in the Pibor region, unseen before (UNICEF, 2019; Anyadike, 2019; Newey, 2019). With diseases like malaria and diarrhea already being a big problem in the area, the floods limiting access to health care, will according to UNICEF(2019) have a big impact on the children in the area. Water sources are contaminated and many homes are left underwater. On top of this, before the flooding there already were high numbers of malnutrition in the region and this will likely increase and even result in acute malnutrition among children. Lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene together with the mass displacement of people will also potentially spread malaria, cholera, and diarrhea (UNICEF, 2019). A lot of people already faced poverty and food insecurity in South Sudan, but the levels of food security are expected to increase due to damaged crops and grazing land drenched in water (UNICEF, 2019; Newey, 2019).

Flooding in South Sudan, with violet representing water
Source: Europen Union, contains modified Copernicus Sentinel Data 2019, Processed by SpaceTec Partners. 

South Sudan is a country with a big history of violent conflict. The past 12 months there has been a ceasefire in the civil war that started in 2013. The country became independent from north Sudan in 2011 after decades of war. The humanitarian gains made in the last year of truce, such as aid agencies reaching previously inaccessible parts of the country because of violent conflict, are likely to be threatened and set back because of the floods (Anyadike, 2019). Violent conflict in South Sudan is a conflict with many causes. Ethnic tension, oil resource management, weak institutions, the chaos of liberation, and power struggles between politicians are the main factors. The country being land-locked and food insecurity are other reasons for conflict in the country. A big problem caused by the violent conflicts in the country is the displacement of millions of people, resulting in a lot of people facing hunger (GSDM, 2019).  Although the country has had humanitarian help in the last year, this new displacement of hundreds of thousands of people on top of the problems already existing is likely to cause a lot of new problems such as a huge hunger crisis (Newey, 2019). The country, dealing with a big history of conflict, political instability, mass displacement, and worsening livelihood conditions because of the floods could, following the key explanations of the climate change – violent conflict nexus (van Baalen & Mobjôrk, 2018), I think lead to new fueled violent conflicts.

In the second part of this blog post I will mention historical examples of the Climate Change – Violent conflict nexus in the Sudan´s.

Livelihood conditions
Droughts in South Sudan and Sudan have in the past forced herders to sell more of their livestock than normally. This induces an oversupply on the market, reducing the prices on the market and causing economic price shocks. According to Maystadt et al. (2015) situations such as these make people more prone to both livestock raiding and joining armed groups.

Migration
Migration can, as mentioned in my previous blogpost, induce conflict. In the Southern region of Sudan, decline in rainfall has caused nomadic groups to find new trackpads and move southwards, migrating to a new area which has resulted in conflicts with the local farmers (van Baalen & Mobjörk, 2018).

Elite exploitation
South Sudan and Sudan can also be used as a case in how elite exploitation can be used in times of climate change (van Baalen & Mobjörk, 2018). The war between the two parts of Sudan began in the early eighties. At that time, one country with a politically and ethnically divided population suffered from a severe drought. Hardships between ethnic groups and conflicts between communities about “land facilitated mobilization of government and rebel forces” (van Baalen & Mobjörk, 2018, p.563) continued to be a source of insecurity even after the independence of South Sudan. Entire communities became part of civil wars as part of both vulnerability to environmental change together with elite exploitation. Local resource conflicts always go hand in hand with political, economic and cultural inequalities in the countries and therefore always play a crucial role in water-related violence in the countries (van Baalen & Mobjörk, 2018). A specific example of this is given by Mohammed (2004). About the Rezaigat camel nomads. After years of trading between the nomads and farmers, landowners stopped this after droughts depleted their agricultural products. This, in turn, made the nomads increasingly opposed to the landowners. This hostility than was exploited by the government, recruiting them to fight against opposition groups in Southern Sudan. On top of this, some of the Razaigat joined the disreputable Janjaweed militia, an organization that committed a lot of crimes and acts of genocide against humanity in Darfur.


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