Published by The Daily Beast on April 26, 2012

Not yet a year old, South Sudan is in the midst of a fiery confrontation with Sudan, its longtime rival and former other half, which threatens to thrust the two countries into a full-fledged war. On Tuesday, for the second day in a row, Sudanese warplanes dispatched by the government in Khartoum bombed villages and oil fields in and around the South Sudanese town of Bentiu, about 40 miles over the border.

With the threat of war now greater than it has been since South Sudan broke away in July 2011, I caught up with Nyagoa Nyuon, one of the young South Sudanese profiled in Newsweek International’s cover story last July, who had returned to South Sudan from the United States to help rebuild. Nyuon is now living in Nairobi, Kenya, on maternity leave from her job with the South Sudan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but she follows news of the growing conflict closely. Her first child, a son named Jermund Nakel, was born in February.

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