Author: Matt Brown

JUBA, South Sudan – Luol Deng just went toe to toe with Lebron James in a hard-fought five-game playoff battle. Deng’s Chicago Bulls lost the series giving him an early off-season. But instead of heading to the Caribbean to rest his weary limbs, he is here in the capital of South Sudan helping his countrymen celebrate the birth of their very own nation ...

JUBA, South Sudan – South Sudan’s capital is getting a fresh coat of paint. With just days to go until the world’s newest nation is born, citizens here are doing a bit of nesting. Women were sweeping the street. Men have been painting walls and repairing potholes. All eyes will be on South Sudan this Saturday, July 9, and everyone wants to make sure that the country puts its best foot forward ...

The town of Agok, which sits just south of Abyei, has been vacated by many residents who fled fearing that insecurity would spread further south. At the same time, the town has become haven for over 27,000 displaced, according to the U.N. refugee agency, and a defensive base for southern troops. Enough Project’s multimedia journalist Tim Freccia traveled to Agok and captured these photos and video ...

A committee of the California State Senate passed a bill Tuesday that will curb the use of conflict minerals from the Congo. The unanimous, bi-partisan vote in the Governmental Organization Committee is an important first step to making California the first conflict-free state ...

The Enough Project has released a video statement from an eye witness of the razing of Maker Abior village who said he saw combatants wearing SAF uniforms as well as other armed actors ...

Last week, as militants torched three villages in the contested region of Abyei, Satellite Sentinel Project captured the first images confirming reports that the villages were deliberately burned. Now the Enough Project has obtained video footage taken from the razed villages of Maker Abior and Todach soon after the attack. The video shows huts still smoldering and dead bodies of southern police being loaded into the back of a pickup truck. The on-the-ground footage, combined with DigitalGlobe imagery taken for the Satellite Sentinel Project further corroborates the systematic destruction of villages that is taking place in the troubled Abyei region ...

During, and in the weeks following, the referendum, the disputed region of Abyei saw brutal attacks on convoys of southerners returning to their homeland ...

The convoy of 95 buses had been on the road for a week when it ran into problems. Mawien Tong, a 23-year-old medical student in Khartoum, was trying to link up with his family in the South and was on one of the lead buses in the convoy that came under attack ...

Following politics in Sudan can be as surreal as an M. C. Escher illustration. Just when you think you have a good grounding in the issues, the floor becomes the ceiling and your whole perception takes a 180-degree jolt. Take Ahmed Haroun. Wanted by the ICC for war crimes in Darfur, Haroun is now playing the part of peacemaker in Sudan's troubled Abyei region ...

Last week, while the rest of southern Sudan was celebrating the successful start of an independence referendum, this troubled border region was embroiled in bloody clashes between southern security forces and an Arab militia long used as a proxy by the North ...