As South Sudanese reflect on a year of turmoil in their country, some couples serve as a visible reminder of the possibility for coexistence, reconciliation and peace.

Many young South Sudanese are sending a powerful message that rejects negative ethnicity. Noami Nyantoc is a Dinka and the 22-year old mother of a two-year old daughter. She is married to a Nuer man since three year ago.

Living at a refugee settlement in Uganda, Nyantoc says that while going to fetch water at a borehole crowded by both Nuer and Dinka refugees, many criticize her because of her faith in her husband despite the ongoing conflict.

“There are some people who tell me to leave your husband.”

Nyantoc’s husband Makuei Ruot Gang is a Nuer from Mayom County of Unity state. He says he himself had previously not believed in inter-marriage with the Dinka tribe due to negative stories he had heard, but at last love engaged him to do so.

Gang says it was not easy to convince Nyantoc to begin a relationship after they first met in 2010, but with time they both agreed to come together as wife and husband. For her part, Nyantoc recalls that introducing Gang to her parents was not easy. She says it was difficult to convince her relatives to allow her to marry a Nuer man. 

But at last they agreed and Gang arranged a traditional dowry payment. Their marriage took place in 2011, several years before the civil war started in South Sudan. Both families participated peacefully in the wedding ceremony and they say their union has been solid ever since.

Nyantoc says she tells critics of the importance of nation over tribe. She insists that she is a symbol of the unity that is possible between Nuer and Dinka communities.

Nyantoc even goes so far as to urge South Sudanese women across the country to marry men from outside of their own tribes, in order to nurture strong unity among the peoples. After all, she believes that conflict cannot stop love. 

“That conflict of fighting cannot stop being married with others because love it a defense to both of you – man and woman. So if you love yourself there is no need of saying that I am not going to marry that person because of the war, no, because marriage is where the person chooses. As for me, that war cannot stop marriage.”

Gang says, “In fact I cannot say the ongoing conflict in our country can destroy our relation, so of course my wife is a Dinka lady, we married before the conflict, the conflict came and we are already a family, so I believe that this conflict will never destroy our relationship as a family.”

File photo: A sign designating separated living areas in Bentiu PoC, January 2014