A former Maine congressman is in Juba, South Sudan, today, witnessing the birth of a nation as the newly appointed head of an international anti-genocide organization.

At the same time, Maine’s Sudanese community plans a day-long celebration in Portland, including a procession from Monument Square and a party at the Portland Exposition Building.

At 12:01 a.m. today, the Republic of South Sudan officially separated from the Republic of Sudan, after an independence vote in January and five decades of civil war and strife that killed millions.

Tom Andrews, who represented Maine’s 1st Congressional District as a Democrat from 1991 to 1994, became president a month ago of the recently merged Genocide Intervention Network/Save Darfur Coalition.

Ann Brown, the group’s spokeswoman, said Andrews planned to be in Freedom Square in the new country’s capital city, where revelers danced and sang in the streets in the hours following independence. He is accompanied by Daniel Sullivan, the group’s policy director, and a videographer, who is recording events to post on the group’s website.

“Juba is packed with people,” Brown said. “Hotel rooms are scarce, so they’re staying in a hotel conference room that’s divided by room dividers.”

The new country faces huge challenges in developing a stable government, a diversified economy and systems to deliver education, health care, water and electricity to its more than 8 million people. In addition, its 1,300-mile border with Sudan is disputed in five areas, several of which are illegally occupied by either northern or southern troops.

North-south negotiations broke down this week over how to resolve the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains, where black Africans from the Nuba tribe have taken shelter in caves in the past month to avoid aerial bombing by the northern army. Northern troops displaced about 100,000 residents when they occupied the oil-rich, Texas-size region of Abyei in May.

“Even today, as we celebrate South Sudan’s independence, north Sudan’s military is attacking civilians in South Kordofan and blockading delivery of life-saving food, water, medicine and fuel,” Andrews wrote in a news release Friday. “The (northern capital of) Khartoum regime also continues to target civilians and block progress toward peace in Darfur.”

Andrews, who previously led the Win Without War Coalition, will blog about his experiences in South Sudan on the group’s website, savedarfur.org, and is scheduled to post tweets at twitter.com at noon today.

In Portland, the South Sudanese Community will celebrate independence with a procession starting at 10 a.m. in Monument Square and ending at the Portland Exposition Building on Park Avenue.

Various community representatives and public officials will speak at the Expo, where a party will follow from noon to midnight featuring African food and dancing. The public is invited.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com