AP Photo

The Yida refugee camp, just south of the disputed border between the Republic of Sudan and newly-independent South Sudan, rarely feels like the edge of a warzone. Children chase donkeys and bicycle wheels through the streets, and the men spend the day languidly sipping spicy coffee in the camp’s surprisingly busy marketplace. The warzone is in the Nuba Mountains in the region of Southern Kordofan, a fifteen kilometer trek away, through the desert and across the border with the Republic of Sudan.

Still, it is difficult to be optimistic here. Nearly 100 refugees arrive in Yida every day, seeking an escape from the fighting in the Nuba Mountains, and relief from this past year’s poor harvest, which was greatly reduced by the effects of the war. (Full disclosure: I...