You mentally have to prepare your head that any moment, anything could go wrong
Ten years after South Sudan raised its flag as the world's newest nation, the promise of independence has given way to civil war, mass atrocity, and a generation shaped by displacement and fear. In Juba, women like Gloria Soma — herself a child of refugee camps — are doing the quiet, determined work of rebuilding: sheltering survivors, pursuing perpetrators, and insisting that no peace can hold without accountability. Their effort is a reminder that the hardest work of nation-making begins not at independence, but in the long aftermath of what independence failed to prevent.
- A decade of civil war, mass rape campaigns, and economic collapse has left South Sudan's founding promise in ruins, with 1.4 million children facing acute malnutrition and impunity woven into the country's institutions.
- Gloria Soma witnessed the violence firsthand in July 2016, sheltering hundreds of women and children in her family compound while bodies lined Juba's streets — a rupture that transformed her from returnee to activist.
- The Titi Foundation, staffed predominantly by women, is fighting on multiple fronts at once: food insecurity, gender-based violence, child survival, and the systematic exclusion of women from leadership and decision-making.
- Of the five hundred perpetrators women's rights organizations are targeting for prosecution, fifty-six have been convicted — a fragile but deliberate effort to prove that accountability is possible even in a country where impunity has become the norm.
- Soma holds onto a conditional optimism: healing is possible, but only if every voice is brought into the conversation — a condition that South Sudan's political establishment has so far refused to meet.
Gloria Soma was twenty-five when she flew into Juba, returning to a country her parents had fled before she was born. Raised in refugee camps across Uganda and Kenya, she had studied in Tanzania and felt the pull of South Sudan's 2011 independence as something close to belonging. The celebrations were enormous — flags, crowds, a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty holding a sign reading "Free at last." The decade that followed dismantled that hope almost immediately.
The civil war that erupted in 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing Vice President Riek Machar left the country shattered. By 2019, a UN human rights commissioner observed that impunity had become so embedded in South Sudan's institutions that "every kind of norm is broken." An uneasy ceasefire has held since 2018, but cycles of violence, economic collapse, and fear persist. "You mentally have to prepare your head that any moment, anything could go wrong," Soma says.
Now thirty-two, Soma runs the Titi Foundation in Juba, working on child malnutrition, food insecurity, and gender-based violence in a country where one in ten children do not survive to age five. More than seventy percent of her staff are women — a deliberate statement in a society that has long excluded women from leadership. Her conviction hardened in July 2016, when fighting broke out on Juba's streets and she opened her family's compound to hundreds of displaced women and children. She listened to accounts of rape, murder, and abduction. What unsettled her most was the survivors' resignation. "They kept telling us, 'it's going to be fine,'" she recalls. "We were like, 'how can it be fine?'"
After three months in Kampala, she returned. The Titi Foundation grew from that decision. But Soma's frustration with both national and international leadership is undisguised. In Bentiu in 2018, Médecins Sans Frontières documented 125 women and girls raped over ten days of violence. No one has been convicted for those crimes. Soma and allied organizations have secured fifty-six convictions since 2018 and are pushing toward five hundred — enough, they believe, to signal that accountability is real.
When asked about hope, Soma pauses before answering. "I'm optimistic," she says, "but only if we begin having everyone accommodated within these spaces to have conversations." Healing, she believes, will take a very long time. But without it, there is no path forward at all.
Gloria Soma was twenty-five when she stepped off a plane in Juba, returning to a country she had never actually lived in. Her parents had fled southern Sudan in the early 1990s, and she had grown up in refugee camps—first in Uganda, then Kenya—before studying in Tanzania. When South Sudan became independent in 2011, the 193rd nation to join the United Nations, Soma felt a pull toward home. She imagined opportunity, stability, a place where she finally belonged.
Ten years ago this week, tens of thousands gathered in Juba's heat to watch the Sudanese flag come down and the South Sudanese flag rise. President Salva Kiir, a former rebel commander in a black cowboy hat, took the oath. A man dressed as the Statue of Liberty held a sign: "Free at last. Republic of South Sudan." But the decade that followed shattered that promise almost immediately.
The civil war that erupted in 2013 and raged until 2018 left the country fractured in ways that persist today. A UN human rights commissioner observed in 2019 that impunity had become so embedded in South Sudan's institutions that "every kind of norm is broken." The fighting has given way to an uneasy ceasefire, but the country remains trapped in cycles of renewed violence, economic collapse, and what Soma describes as a permanent state of fear. "You mentally have to prepare your head that any moment, any time, anything could go wrong," she says. "I don't feel safe."
Soma, now thirty-two, runs the Titi Foundation, a Juba-based organization focused on women and children in a nation where one in ten infants do not survive to their fifth birthday, where sexual violence against women and girls is endemic, and where 1.4 million children are expected to suffer severe malnutrition this year—the highest number since the war began. More than seventy percent of her staff are women, a deliberate choice rooted in her conviction that South Sudan has systematically excluded women from leadership and decision-making. "Women have been marginalised and thought to be second-class citizens," she says. "It leaves out ideas for innovations that women would have brought to the table."
Soma's commitment to this work crystallized in July 2016, when fighting between forces loyal to President Kiir and those supporting Vice President Riek Machar erupted on Juba's streets. She opened her family's compound to hundreds of women and children seeking shelter. Over the following days, she listened to their accounts: rape, murder, abduction, forced displacement. What struck her most was their resignation. "They kept telling us, 'it's going to be fine'," she recalls. "We were like, 'how can it be fine? This is not normal.'" When she finally ventured out after a ceasefire, the roads were lined with bodies. The smell of fresh blood hung in the air. Her first instinct was to leave—to take her two children and flee the country, a privilege she acknowledges most South Sudanese do not have.
But after three months in Kampala, Uganda, she felt the weight of what she had abandoned. She returned to South Sudan determined to contribute, and the Titi Foundation was born. Through it, she tackles interconnected crises: food insecurity, child malnutrition, gender-based violence, female employment. The foundation has also worked to help women maintain basic hygiene during the pandemic, distributing food, soap, and clean water.
Yet Soma's frustration with both national and international leadership is evident. The political establishment squandered the hopes of 2011. The international community failed to prevent the catastrophe that followed. Most urgently, she argues, South Sudan needs a process of genuine healing—one that requires accountability for atrocities. She points to Bentiu, capital of Northern Liech state, where in 2018 Médecins Sans Frontières documented that 125 women and girls were raped over ten days of violence. Survivors reported being whipped, beaten, and struck with rifle butts. No one has been convicted. "To this date we have challenges ensuring that these individuals get justice," Soma says. She and other women's rights organizations are pushing for more prosecutions. Since 2018, they have secured convictions against fifty-six perpetrators. Their target is five hundred—enough to demonstrate the scale of atrocities and offer survivors some measure of justice.
When asked if she retains hope for her country, Soma pauses. "I'm optimistic," she says finally, "but only if we begin having everyone accommodated within these spaces to have conversations." Healing requires that people be heard, that mistakes be acknowledged, that the fractured pieces of South Sudan's consciousness be brought together. It will take a very long time, she believes. But without it, there is no path forward.
Notable Quotes
Women in South Sudan have been marginalised and thought to be second-class citizens who cannot deliver. This attitude is not only wrong but is holding the country back.— Gloria Soma, director of the Titi Foundation
We need people to heal in order for us to move forward. Unfortunately, at the moment everything is quite fractured. It's going to take a very long time before that can happen.— Gloria Soma
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You returned to South Sudan in 2016 expecting to find a functioning state. What did you actually find?
A country in the grip of war, yes, but more than that—a country where people had learned to accept the unacceptable. I opened my home to women and children fleeing violence, and what struck me was not their anger but their exhaustion. They had already internalized the idea that this was normal.
You left after seeing the bodies on the roads. What made you come back?
Guilt, I think. Privilege. I had the means to escape and I used it, but I couldn't live with the knowledge of what I'd left behind. After three months away, I realized I had to return and do something, however small.
The Titi Foundation has secured convictions against fifty-six perpetrators of sexual violence. That sounds like progress.
It is progress, but it's also a fraction of what's needed. We're targeting five hundred convictions. The point isn't just punishment—it's visibility. When survivors see perpetrators held accountable, it tells them their trauma was real, that what happened to them matters.
You speak about healing as a prerequisite for peace. But doesn't accountability come first?
They're inseparable. You can't heal without acknowledging what happened. And you can't move forward as a nation without creating spaces where people feel safe enough to speak their truth. Right now, South Sudan is fractured. Everyone is isolated in their own trauma.
Do you believe the international community bears responsibility for what happened after 2011?
Absolutely. They watched independence celebrations and then largely looked away as the country descended into war. The question now is whether they'll stay engaged long enough to support real accountability and healing, or if they'll move on to the next crisis.