South Sudan

Africa

Year opened: 2011

The Mission Society opened a field in the newly independent South Sudan in 2011. These missionaries work with the East Africa Conference of the United Methodist Church and the General Board of Global Ministries as partners in their ministry with The Mission Society. They helped to begin a Community Health Evangelism program in South Sudan, which combines health care education and evangelism in rural communities. South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world with tremendous health care needs.

Sudan has had a long history of civil war and strife between the largely Arab, Muslim north and the non-Arab, non-Muslim south. More than four million people were displaced and more than two million killed during the recent conflict that began in 1983 and lasted more than two decades. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 led to "relative peace" and displaced persons starting flooding back into their southern homeland. In January 2011 the people of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly for independence from the North. South Sudan became an independent state on July 9, 2011.