South Sudan’s warring leaders signed another peace deal last month, but while the political elites prepare to carve up power once again, hunger and fighting continue far from the capital.
“We heard they signed peace, but we’ve yet to see it here,” said Mary Nyang, a 36-year-old resident of Kandak, an isolated northern village. Here, hunger is the norm and battles between government and rebel soldiers a very recent memory.
The war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup.
A brutal conflict flared up, often fought along tribal lines and characterised by massacres of civilians, rape and looting.