Children's hands are seen as they cut meat at their home in Pibor, South Sudan. – Photo by Reuters

A boy tightens the hide on his drum before church services at the Presbyterian Church in Pibor. – Photo by Reuters

A woman prays during a Sunday service at the Presbyterian Church in Pibor, South Sudan. – Photo by Reuters

A family from the Murle tribe stands near a burned out shelter in Pibor, after ethnic clashes. In a referendum promised by the pact, 99 percent of the southerners chose to secede, and on July 9, 2011, the flag of South Sudan was raised over Juba, the rickety new capital. – Photo by Reuters

Thousands of refugees are streaming into the country every week to avoid violence on Sudan's side of the border. – Photo by AP

Female child refugees who escaped violence on Sudan's side of the disputed border, queue up inside Yida refugee camp, South Sudan. The world's newest nation, South Sudan, is celebrating its first birthday and while the largest achievement over the last year was avoiding a return to all-out war with Sudan. – Photo by AP

A young girl with malaria rests in the inpatient ward of the Malualkon Primary Health Care Center in Malualkon. Development experts have grown more sophisticated in recent decades about how they deliver aid. – Photo by Reuters

A detail of one of a few broken ambulances at the Aweil State Hospital, the only hospital in the South Sudanese state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal June. As in many developing nations, international aid is both an invaluable help to South Sudan and a crutch that sometimes enables it to avoid reality. – Photo by Reuters

A woman carrying her sick child climbs into an International Rescue Committee (IRC) vehicle to travel to the Aweil State Hospital in Aweil from the Malualkon Primary Health Care Center in Malualkon, in the South Sudanese state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal. – Photo by Reuters

South Sudanese boys holding candles as the clock ticks over to midnight on July 9, 2011 to mark the day that South Sudan will officially declare independence from the north in Juba, the capital of the soon-to-be Republic of South Sudan. – Photo by AFP