The Republic of South Sudan was born on 9 July 2011 in a context of instability due to increased fighting between the Sudanese Army and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North rebels in the border region of South Kordofan.
468,000 new internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees have been created in the past year due to the ongoing violence in the border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. These new IDPs and refugees are supplementary to the 110, 000 refugees in South Sudan from the oil-rich region of Abyei. Meanwhile, 1.9 million people still reside in camps in Darfur.
Humanitarian access in some areas of Darfur and of South Kordofan is denied by the Sudanese Armed Forces, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians without assistance. Humanitarian actors disagree over how to address the rift and to coordinate assistance in border areas.