The segment description is as follows:
Fr Joseph Marious is a priest with the young Uganda-based congregation, the Apostles of Jesus. Originally from Juba in South Sudan, he worked in the Nuba mountains as a missionary before coming to Rome, where he’s studying at the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. He talked to Philippa Hitchen about his hopes for the birth of the new nation and about the ongoing plight of the people in the resource-rich Nuba mountain region….
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, hosted a roundtable meeting on South Sudan today at Lambeth Palace, with participants from government, NGOs, churches, media and academia.
The meeting, chaired by Baroness Kinnock, focused on the links between large scale development needs of the world’s newest state, and ongoing governance, peace and security issues. The Archbishop spoke about the urgent need for peace dividends to be delivered in South Sudan in education and health, in order to foster long term peace.
Less than a week after South Sudan celebrated its long-awaited independence, Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of the Episcopal Diocese of Kadugli has said it is “devastating and saddening” to learn that his people of the South Kordofan region, “friends, brothers and sisters, children, my flock, have been killed mercilessly and are lying now in mass graves in Kadugli.”
Elnail was responding to the Enough Project’s Satellite Sentinel report that revealed the extent of the atrocities committed along the north-south border in recent weeks and identified what it says are three vast excavated sites used to dump the bodies of those who’ve been slaughtered.
The international community must not take its “eyes off Southern Sudan at the moment”, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned on Saturday, the day the new African republic was founded.
Dr Williams told the General Synod in York that the situation in the region could not be ignored, as there was still the threat of “genocidal violence”, after reports of unrest in border regions, including Abyei and south Kordofan.
He said that he would write to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, “celebrating the inauguration of the republic, but urging the same level of international attention at this critical period” as in the run-up to the referendum in January. He would also register “profound concern” over the instability in Abyei and south Kordofan, and the “deliberate tarÂgeting” of the Nubian people.
Father Lombardi noted how John Paul II “addressed, with his typical extraordinary courage in the face of rulers, the dramatic themes of justice and freedom” and was “welcomed with incredible enthusiasm by an immense crowd of Sudanese Catholics, mostly refugees from the south, who had fled from the violence of an endless civil war.”
“Eighteen years have passed,” the spokesman reflected. “It is estimated that 2 million have died and 4 million have been displaced, but now we hope that the war is truly over and that the new republic of South Sudan, desired by the majority of its inhabitants, might begin a new history of peace.”
In an exuberant and joyous three-and-a-half hour service here July 10, South Sudanese Episcopalians celebrated the birth of their new nation, even as they looked towards the difficult future of their country.
With South Sudan set to become an independent nation Saturday, Rhode Island Episcopal Bishop Geralyn Wolf will go to Washington in coming days to advocate for a renewed effort by the United States to secure peace and security in the troubled region.
Bishop Wolf noted that she has been invited by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse to lead the U.S. Senate in prayer at its July 14 session. Following that, she said, she and her husband, Thomas Bair Jr., plan to meet the other members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation, Sen. Jack Reed and Representatives David N. Cicilline and James R. Langevin, about the problems facing the people of South Sudan.
A Dorset bishop who was invited to South Sudan to see the country celebrate its independence said it was a “jubilant” occasion.
The Diocese of Salisbury has had links with the region for 39 years and has sent several figures to the region.
Bishop of Sherborne, Dr Graham Kings, said it was important to show support for the new nation.
Across South Sudan, jubilant crowds are celebrating their freedom and what they hope will be the start of a peaceful and prosperous future.
In a statement, the head of the Episcopal Church in Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng said, “We now have a real government and can now be identified as a nation, which has attracted international support.
“These are great achievements which must be recognized, celebrated and guarded carefully.”
South Sudanese wept openly as they celebrated their independence Saturday, cheering, whistling and dancing down the streets in a ceremony fitting for the birth of a new nation.
“We are free at last,” some chanted, flags draped around their shoulders.
A man on his knees kissed the ground.