POYi 60 | Winners List | Winning Images | Judges    History | Archive | Endowment | Press Room | Contact   
POYi.org
  winning images | news picture story | Third Place

 

Third Place
Randy Olson
Aurora / National Geographic Society

"The Perfect War"  

Sudan is the largest country in Africa and hosts a civil war between the Islamic north and the African south that has the highest casualty rate of any war since World War II.

Two and a half million people have been killed in this insidious conflict. It drags on because southerners have no voice and northerners have engineered "The Perfect War" where they abduct southern refugees and force brother to fight brother in the south.

The North forces people out of the south with bombs, burning their crops, and by gunship harassment.Ê Southerners are forced into garrison towns and eventually into the largest refugee ring in the world surrounding Khartoum.

This story is particularly interesting now because there is a small window for peace in this civil war that has been dragging on since the end of colonial rule. This war has always been about tribal issues and ideology... but moreÊÊÊ than that, it has always been about resources. The clash over resources may bring peace. The north controls the oil pipeline and the only port and the south controls the land over the oil.

 
POYi 60 | Winners List | Winning Images | Judges

History | Archive | Endowment | Press Room | Contact