South Sudan: The next failed African state?

NAIROBI: In the beginning, South Sudan held so much promise. Africa's newest country had broken off the Sudan after a bloody civil war that lasted nearly two decades and cost 2 million lives.

After secession, all was looking up for the sprawling oil and mineral-rich world's number 193rd country and Africa's 54th, with its vast agricultural land and a people weary of war. Yet, alas, it faced great peril as well. Four years later, a raging civil war has devoured South Sudan. A political power struggle pitting President Salva Kiir against his estranged deputy, whom he sacked months before an attempted coup, Riek Machar, has cost nearly half a million lives and displaced up to a million people, according to the UN.