Sudan's Third Civil War
After two long civil wars between the then unified north and South Sudan, the country signed a peace agreement that lasted from 2005, the end of the second civil war, to 2011. When the agreement had come to an end, the people of the south voted to secede from Sudan. Though far from diffusing the situation, the split caused if possible more tension between the country's. A rift soon arose between the two when Sudan raised its transit fee to $32-36 per barrel to try and make up for lost oil revenue, whilst South Sudan were only willing to pay less than $1 per barrel. The rift escalated when Sudan accused South Sudan of stealing $815,000,000 in oil as payment for outstanding transit fees and in January 2012, in rebellion and outrage South Sudan shut down their entire oil production.
Map of Sudan, showing the boundary separating the North and south of Sudan.
Source: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=5342d706-9ec5-46b0-b163-fe2fcd01ddb3
Source: http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=5342d706-9ec5-46b0-b163-fe2fcd01ddb3
In February 2012, the country's signed an official non aggression pact. At around the same time headlines began to emerge concerning the recent debacle expressing a caution that "the two nations were inching their way to war". This created an air of confusion, would the nations have peace or war? On one side there was landlocked South Sudan, with a plentiful supply of oil but no way to deport it and make a profit without paying Sudan's hefty transit fee. And on the other Sudan, oil poor and with a faltering economy, much of their profit having been made in transit fees paid by South Sudan. As a result of their most recent falling out both country's were suffering. Both of the nations economies had dropped with the loss of revenue from the Oil production and transportation.
This was not the only incident between North and South Sudan however, several other debarcles were continuing in the months surrounding the oil refinery incident. In the months following, incidents continued between the North and the south of Sudan. One particularly Nasty incident involved military forces from both country's being relocated on terms of "supervising" the disputed area, Kadugli, the oil hotspot. It was reported by the U.N that around 102,000 people fled the region fearing for their safety. Another incident took place in Kordofan, Sudans capital, when hundreds of rebel fighters were slaughtered by Sudanese military troops.
Ongoing incidents continued up until December 2013 when heavy fighting broke out. This conflict took a devastating toll on children. There was a rapid increase in child affected incidents, with 514 verified incidents involving 16,307 children. There were 81 reported incidents of recruitment, with 617 children (612 boys and 5 girls) either being approached about or recruited. The majority of these situations were traced back to Sudan's People's Liberation Army and Sudan's Liberation Army in Opposition, the South Sudan Wildlife Service, South Sudan National Police Service, the White Army, the South Sudan Democratic Movement/Army-Cobra Faction and certain armed allied groups. Large numbers of children were also seen with the Johnson Olonyi armed group, however these sightings were unverified, due to challenging security situations and concerns for the children's safety. Another smaller, yet still significant, number of 64 boys, between the ages of 14-17 were sighted as recruits by the Justice and Equality Movement. Authorities managed to verify 55 of those cases.