The Republic of South Sudan was founded on 9th July 2011 after decades of civil war and millions of deaths. It is officially the world’s newest country.

Cruel and constant warfare has resulted in countless casualties. I met one such victim in Kampala, Uganda. Gloria Poni. Orphan. Seventeen years old. Unable to speak.  At the age of three she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder at the hands of the Lord’s Resistance Army. It was days before anyone found her, crying amongst the corpses of her family. It took her years to relearn how to smile but now she is a surprisingly cheerful young woman, kind, friendly and hopeful.

On the morning before I cross the border to South Sudan, it feels like I am in the beginning of a forties’ film. Mist is rising over the horizon, and I am about to embark on an exciting journey in a ten-seater Christian missionary plane, with a mysterious Italian man, a priest with a fedora, a young family and a pretty Canadian who I think my dad fancies. The landscape out of the plane window is vast and beautiful. The lush plains, the green mountains and the snaking river look like a cover from the National Geographic. Every now and then I see a scattering of mud huts but no roads, towns or even villages. The pilot announces a short stop-off. Foolishly, I get out of the plane to explore and take a photo of two young children playing in the red sand. Out of nowhere, armed guards usher me into a hut. They demand to know “Who are you taking photos for?”

Apparently the sand track is a military air base and they think I am a spy. They keep saying “big deal… very big deal.” I am in shock, my future flashes before my eyes, the next decade of my life spent in a Sudanese prison. My mind goes completely blank and all I can think about is Bridget Jones’ Diary Two. My dad finds me and after deliberating over whether or not to bribe them, settles on a “no big deal…we big supporters of your country…no big deal…happy Christmas.” He gestures at me to follow him out and we pretend to be confident and leave. I feel a bit sick.

In Kajo Keji, South Sudan I visit the Charlotte Baby Home, the orphanage set up five years ago by my father. (I am quite annoyed as Charlotte is the name of my younger sister.) Here, the children are no longer victims of war, but victims of an atrocious lack of medical facilities in a country where one in every seven women dies in childbirth. Here there are no midwives, and only one unreliable doctor serving tens of thousands of patients. Most of the children were orphaned when their mothers died in childbirth and their fathers subsequently disappeared, others have lost parents to AIDS or domestic abuse. If it were not for the Charlotte Baby Home, many of these children would also have died. The thought alone makes me feel nauseous as the children run up to me and start singing a strangely enchanting Christian-tribal chant. I join in a mating ritual dance, which mainly involves jumping, shimmying my hips awkwardly and shaking my fist at a male partner to the sound of drums.

I speak to Susan Tabia, who runs the orphanage and she informs me of the dire situation. Poverty and destitution is commonplace. Prices have trebled over the last six months. A poor harvest along with the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees forced to leave the North, have compounded the food shortages. All the products at the local market are imported from Uganda at huge expense and difficulty due to the fact that South Sudan lacks even the most basic infrastructure. According to the orphanage budget, the annual salary of an employee is $312, yet one tin of milk powder costs $9. The World Food Programme states that in South Sudan, 36% of the population, 2.7 million people, are severely short of food. In the local village there is a warlord and a church but no water or electricity, no banks, no shops, no telephones.

Susan tells me that the general feeling about South Sudanese independence is one of optimism.  However, she says there are still many obstacles to be overcome. Religious tensions have escalated since the partition of the country; Christians have been expelled from the North, and Muslims from the South.  Inter-religious relations are forbidden and the precarious peace held between North and South seems soon to be shattered.  The massive oil reserves, that should make the landlocked Republic of South Sudan one of the richest countries in the world, are being prohibited from being exported by Sudan at ports such as Bashayer. On the 10th January this year, Sudan started to block the export of over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil, an act that may soon have international resonance for European and Chinese consumers.

Even in South Sudan alone, tensions are rife among the various tribes. Whilst Susan belongs to the Kuku tribe, the newly elected President Mayardit belongs to the Dinka tribe. Not belonging to the Dinka tribe entails automatic discrimination in the application for a state job. She predicts the eruption of tribal tensions, a prediction which is soon to be fulfilled. On New Year’s Eve in Pibor, Jonglei State, around 8,000 members of the Lou Nuer tribe armed with spears and AK47s attempted to wipe out the Murle tribe in a brutal massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Despite the presence of UN peacekeepers, and Russian helicopters which never took off due to “administrative hurdles”, the Lou Nuer burned entire villages to the ground, stole cattle and killed men, women and children. According to observers, the UN did not fire a shot.

I catch a virus, almost quarantined on the way home and while I vomit I remember Susan Tabia’s words. “Things can only get better” she assures me.