Already battered by decades of civil war, some villagers in southern Sudan are now suffering from the country's booming oil industry, which has displaced people from their homes and is poisoning their water. The country's infamous humanitarian disaster is being compounded by an ecological catastrophe.
Despite sanctions to punish the Sudanese government for the genocide in Darfur, foreign investment in the country's oil industry is skyrocketing, fueled by energy-hungry nations such as China and Malaysia that are helping the Sudanese to build a petroleum infrastructure. For the elite, the new oil investment--which reached $2.3 billion in 2006--means swanky hotels, shopping ...