South Sudan In Focus - VOA Africa

The Kenyan Supreme Court cancels the results of the country’s presidential elections, and holds the electoral commission responsible for irregularities in the voting process; civil society and opposition leaders proclaim it is not possible to conduct free and fair elections in South Sudan until peace is restored; and some foreigners working in South Sudan are able to support their families back home despite the economic crisis.

Civil society groups in Juba are refused permission to meet and discuss the revitalization of the 2015 peace agreement; a South Sudanese flag-raising ceremony is postponed out of respect for slain American journalist Christopher Allen; and the World Health Organization says cholera cases in South Sudan have been on the decline for the past four weeks.

The government of South Sudan expresses regret over the killing of American journalist Christopher Allen, and sends condolences to his family; the United States donates more than 30 metric tons of high-calorie biscuits to refugees in Uganda; and lawyers from the Abyei region say the governments of Sudan and South Sudan have failed to resolve their dispute over the final status of Abyei.

The South Sudan army hands over the body of American freelance journalist Christopher Allen to U.S. Embassy officials; Sudanese living under temporary protected status (TPS) in the United States worry the program will soon be terminated; and a South Sudan native describes living in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and catastrophic flooding in the U.S. state of Texas.

American freelance journalist Christopher Allen is killed by South Sudanese government forces along the South Sudan-Uganda border. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the killing, and calls on the international community to hold the government of South Sudan accountable. Meanwhile, South Sudan's minister of information says Christopher Allen carried no identity as a journalist, and was considered a rebel by government forces.

A top U.N. peace-keeping official says it is critical for South Sudan leaders to listen to the international community in achieving lasting peace; business owners in the Ugandan border town of Elegu count their losses days after flooding destroys houses and businesses; and the conflict in Juba separates thousands of children from their families and forces them to beg for food and money on the streets.

The U.N. Security Council is briefed on South Sudan and efforts to revive the 2015 peace agreement; a South Sudanese diplomat refutes reports that embassy employees have not received their pay checks; and Sudan's maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world.

Armed groups destroy Doctors Without Borders’ medical facilities in Upper Nile; a researcher for Amnesty International says food insecurity has reached unprecedented levels due to the South Sudan conflict; and traders say business is booming in the Ugandan border village of Merwa.

South Sudanese in the diaspora contribute money to feed hungry families and relatives back home; leaders and residents in Torit lose hope in the government’s ability to protect their community; and hundreds of South Sudanese children live without their parents in Ugandan refugee camps.

The head of UNMISS orders the U.N. backed regional protection force stationed near Juba airport to relocate; Bishop Paride Taban says South Sudanese refugees in Ugandan settlement camps live in dire conditions and want to return home; and the government of Egypt delivers food and relief items to help South Sudanese civilians affected by hunger and disease.