While the pressure is on Sudan over corruption and murder, the worst has occurred in the US-backed South Sudan which has struggled to contain internal conflicts raging between various fractions.
It is now a year since the people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for independence from Khartoum. But the vision of a new era of peace and co-operation between north and south, endorsed at the time by President Omar al-Bashir and the southern leader, President Salva Kiir, is fading fast amid deepening disputes over oil revenue-sharing, cross-border conflict, and looming famine.
The US, which pressed Khartoum hard to honour the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement and allow the south to secede, has cynically withheld previously dangled rewards, failing to lift economic sanctions and provide debt relief.
This week Africa Today asks whether external forces are ticking time bomb in the African new state.