Mapping the Famine in South Sudan

Last week I commented on the seeming disintegration of the world's newest country--South Sudan--now barely 6 years old. After its "divorce" from the predominantly Arab Muslim Sudan to the north, the people of South Sudan have not been able to unify and move forward. The bottom line is that people are starving, and the Humanitarian Information Unit of the U.S. State Department has assembled a very nice infographic to summarize the situation.

What the map cannot easily show is that the battle between two anthropologically famous ethnic groups--the Nuer and the Dinka--is at the root of the violence and dissembling of the country. These are culture wars at their very worst.