In 2002, nearly twenty years after the war began, the United States government passed the Sudan Peace Act, officially accusing the Sudanese government of genocide in the deaths of more than two million people. Three years later, a peace accord was signed between the north and south. The south was granted autonomy—the ability to govern itself—for six years. In 2011, a referendum took place in which the citizens of southern Sudan voted to secede, gaining their independence from the north. Unrest over South Sudan’s oil and its political leadership have roiled its infancy of the world’s newest
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