Garang was killed in a helicopter crash in July 2005, less than a month after becoming president of the autonomous Southern Sudan region, which he had led in a rebellion against Sudan’s central government for two decades.
The mostly Christian and animist south voted in a referendum six years later to secede from the mostly Muslim north.
When South Sudan became independent on July 9, 2011, tens of thousands flocked to Garang’s mausoleum in the new capital of Juba to celebrate.
But his charisma and political acumen would be sorely missed in the ensuing years, as the country descended into civil war.
“We did not vote for separation to fight among ourselves. I don’t think this was what Garang was fighting for,” said John Manja, 33, a motorbike taxi driver in Juba.
Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of the war, which was fought largely along ethnic lines, and resulting hunger and disease from 2013-2018.
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