Celebrations erupted in South Sudan on Saturday as the world’s newest nation proclaimed formal independence and turned the page on five decades of devastating conflict with the north.
“Our martyrs did not die in vain… We have waited for more than 56 years for this day. It is a day that will be forever engraved on our hearts and minds,” President Salva Kiir told tens of thousands of jubilant southerners at the official ceremony in Juba, AFP reported.
Earlier, parliament Speaker James Wani Igga read out the declaration of the south’s secession from the north following a near unanimous vote for separation in a January referendum.
“We, the democratically elected representatives of the people, based on the will of the people of South Sudan, and as confirmed by the outcome of the referendum of self-determination, hereby declare South Sudan to be an independent and sovereign nation,” Wani Igga told the cheering crowds.
South Sudan’s national flag was then raised, to wild applause, tears and song.
“I should cry for the recognition of this flag among the flags of the world,” shouted one tearful man. “We have been denied our rights. Today, no more shall that happen.”
Recognition of the newly independent state flooded in from around the world, with US President Barack Obama vowing to support South Sudan in the “hard work” of nation building.
But even as Obama hailed the “birth of a new nation” after South Sudan’s official declaration of independence, he stopped short of announcing any immediate changes in longstanding US sanctions on Sudan itself that Khartoum has been hoping will be lifted.
British Prime Minister David Cameron called it a historic day “for South Sudan and the whole of Africa”. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the new state’s birth “after a struggle that destroyed so many lives for so many years”, and said it was an important day for the United Nations, which has been engaged in promoting peace in Sudan for many years.
