South Sudan: Dashed hopes after 10 years of independence South Sudan's 10 years as an independent country have been marked by pervasive insecurity, a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and endemic corruption. South Sudan split from Sudan in 2011 The euphoria following South Sudan's independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011 was short-lived. Less than a year and a half later, the resource-rich country was plunged into a brutal civil war, at a cost of almost 400,000 lives. As a result of the civil war, 1.6 million people of the country's 11 million people are currently displaced within South Sudan while more than 2 million South Sudanese have sought refuge in other nations.