---
type: Country
title: South Sudan
description: The world's youngest country, where filming costs $1,000 in permits and still gets you stopped — oil that can't be refined, banknotes that top out at 1,000, and a distrust of cameras Harry traces to the wars.
tags: [south-sudan, juba, filming-permits, oil, economy, tribes, africa]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T16:30:00Z
---

# South Sudan

Harry spends a day in [Juba](/places/juba.md) and opens the video by calling it
**the hardest experience of all his travels** — not because of danger, but
because filming is illegal here and stays difficult even once you have paid for
permission.

## The state of the country

- **Independence in 2011**, making it the youngest country in the world. It was
  part of Sudan under British and Egyptian rule, and separated because the peoples
  are distinct; Harry puts the origin of the problem on Britain.
- **Very many tribes, each with its own rules**, which he gives as the reason the
  government struggles to govern.
- **Tribal conflict is now fought with guns** rather than sticks and arrows, which
  is what makes it one of the more dangerous countries in Africa.
- **A heavy international and military presence** — UN vehicles everywhere, army
  convoys — none of which can be filmed.
- **Life is getting worse, not better.** The cost of living is what people raise
  first, unprompted.

## The oil paradox

The most quotable exchange in the video, and the country's economics in one
answer:

- **South Sudan has plenty of oil and cannot refine it.**
- **It sells crude and buys it back refined at three or four times the price** —
  the machinery isn't there.
- **Petrol is therefore expensive in an oil country.** Harry's line: *the people
  with the oil pay the most for the oil.*

## Practical

- **Filming requires permits, and they are not cheap**: **$600 for the city and
  $400 to film with a tribe.** He paid $1,000 in total and was still stopped, told
  off, and warned off by a passing driver.
- **Why**: creators are assumed to be spies or undercover journalists out to
  damage the country's reputation — a distrust he attributes to the wars rather
  than to individuals.
- **Change money at the black market rate.** Using the official rate, in his
  words, will get you screwed.
- **The largest banknote is 1,000**, so $100 arrives as a brick of cash.
- ***Kawaja*** is the word for a white person, and he is told in advance that he
  will hear it all day.
- **He travelled with a bodyguard and a local**, and is explicit that this made it
  a completely different trip from doing it alone.
- **Imported goods carry the distance in their price**: a tuk-tuk shipped from
  India takes two months and costs **$4,000**.

## Harry's verdict

Split cleanly in two, and he says so in the last thirty seconds: **the people he
met in the street were extremely kind, and the people in charge were not
helpful.** He hopes that the video is eventually seen as evidence of the first
half.

## Source

- [Nobody Visits this Country - Find Out Why 🇸🇸](/videos/fsTJ7XYw0g0.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsTJ7XYw0g0