The United States warned Thursday that a new regional plan to shore up South Sudan’s failing peace agreement was the last chance for Juba’s leaders to end the war, now in its fourth year. US Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison told the UN Security Council that Washington will reconsider its support for the deal signed two … Read more
South Sudan government forces have launched an offensive towards a rebel stronghold in the north of the country, the UN said Wednesday. David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), described “heavy fighting” and an “extremely worrying” situation in the area around the town of Pagak in the Upper Nile region in … Read more
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation gripped by civil war, has cancelled its official independence day celebrations for the second year running. “We are not celebrating… because our situation does not require us to celebrate at a time when there are people in need of these funds,” explained government spokesman Michael Makuei of the cancellation. … Read more
South Sudan’s media authority will lift a ban on around 20 foreign journalists who had been refused access to the country, a top media official said Thursday. Earlier this month the government’s media regulatory authority said it had banned the journalists over “unsubstantiated and unrealistic stories”. The National Dialogue Steering Committee — tasked with leading … Read more
What was once Bentiu, the gateway to South Sudan’s oil fields, is now a cluster of bullet-riddled buildings and piles of scrap metal, its ghostly avenues abandoned. Residents of the town have long since decamped to a well-ordered grid of mud dwellings ringed by sewage, where they live in wretched limbo after three years of … Read more
Thirteen South Sudanese soldiers have gone on trial accused of raping foreign aid workers and murdering their local colleague. The incident in the capital, Juba, last July resulted in a UN report which accused UN peacekeepers of failing in their duty to protect civilians. It happened as rival forces in the civil war clashed in … Read more
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir declared a unilateral ceasefire Monday as he launched a national dialogue, a controversial bid to end a civil war that excludes his rival Riek Machar. It is not the first time Kiir has vowed the army will lay down arms in the three-year conflict, and he warned that his troops … Read more
Sacked South Sudanese army chief Paul Malong, returned to the capital Juba on Saturday claiming he had been asked to return by the authorities and insisting that he’d never had any intention of rebelling. “If I want to rebel I can rebel here (in Juba)… If I was about to fight I would fight here,” … Read more
South Sudan’s president insisted Friday that the security situation was “normal” and that people had no reason to worry, three days after dismissing powerful army chief Paul Malong. President Salva Kiir’s dismissal of Malong on Tuesday night has raised concern among the population who fear confrontation between soldiers loyal to each man. Speaking at the … Read more
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has dismissed Paul Malong, the war-torn country’s powerful army chief of staff. Malong was sacked via a presidential decree that was announced on Tuesday on national television by Kiir himself. General James Ajongo Mawut, the former deputy chief of general staff for administration and finance, was named new head of … Read more
South Sudan President Salva Kiir sacked his powerful, hardline army chief Paul Malong on Tuesday, a government spokesman said. General Paul Malong, long regarded as an ethnic nationalist of Kiir’s majority Dinka tribe, was replaced by General James Ajongo Mawut, a career soldier. “The decrees are two: one for the relief of Chief of General … Read more
The United Nations on Saturday called for a halt to fighting in South Sudan after the government launched a new offensive earlier this week. South Sudanese government forces targeted a town in the north on Wednesday, displacing civilians the UN said may be headed toward the border with Sudan. “We are disturbed by the escalation … Read more
South Sudanese government forces on Wednesday launched an offensive on a town in the north, displacing civilians who may be headed toward the border with Sudan, the UN envoy said. Some 50,000 people in Kodok in Upper Nile state, many of whom fled fighting six weeks ago in the town of Wau Shilluk, were at … Read more
Sudan’s powerful security agency on Monday accused breakaway South Sudan of staging talks with rebels fighting Khartoum’s forces in two southern states, with the goal of “extending the war” there. In a statement, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) said South Sudanese President Salwa Kiir, his deputy Taban Deng and top army commanders held … Read more
South Sudanese former rebels are holding about a dozen UN staff hostage in a refugee camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a UN official said Tuesday. UN officials were negotiating to try to win the release of the employees from the MONUSCO mission in DR Congo, said the official, who asked not to be … Read more
Targeted killings of specific ethnic groups in South Sudan’s civil war amount to “genocide”, according to Britain’s International Development Minister Priti Patel. “It’s tribal, it’s absolutely tribal, so on that basis it’s genocide,” Patel told reporters in Uganda on Wednesday, according to a ministry press officer travelling with her. Patel was returning from a visit … Read more
In the no man’s land between South Sudan and Uganda wind lashes though scrubland, whipping hot dust into the eyes of David Otong Oroma and his sister as they struggle to push their heavily laden motorbike over the border. The pair fled from the South Sudanese town of Pajok, an ethnic Acholi agricultural and trading … Read more
Deadly fighting erupted, with civilians killed along ethnic lines and thousands displaced in clashes Monday between government forces and rebels in South Sudan’s second-largest city of Wau, witnesses and priests said. At least 2,000 people sought shelter in a Catholic church, and many reported targeted killings against civilians by government troops, according to local priest … Read more
Three foreign petroleum engineers abducted by South Sudanese rebels have been released after negotiations brokered by Sudan and Ethiopia, a Sudanese security agency said on Thursday. Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose and Pakistani Ayaz Hussein Jamali, who worked for DAR Petroleum, had been seized separately from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich … Read more
In July 2016, violent clashes broke out in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. The clashes were between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), controlled by the President, Salva Kiir on one side, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – In Opposition (SPLA-IO), controlled by the then First Vice President, Riek Machar on the other … Read more