‘They came for us, to take our shelters and kill us': how violence returned to a shattered South Sudan

The Guardian

16-05-2025

Night had already fallen on Juba, the capital of South Sudan, at about 7pm on 24 March, when an orange glow lit up the sky. It didn't take long before news spread that the government had carried out an airstrike. For weeks, clashes had taken place in remote parts of the country between the army of the president, Salva Kiir, and opposition forces, but never that close to the capital. The target – an opposition base in Wunaliet, 15km west of the city – was consumed in flames.
Just hours before the airstrike, Nicholas Haysom, the head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (Unmiss), had warned that the political and security situation in the country had deteriorated. 'We are left with no other conclusion but to assess that South Sudan is teetering on the edge of a relapse into civil war,' he told a press briefing.
Tensions have been particularly high in the north-eastern state of Upper Nile. On 4 March, the White Army, a youth militia from the Nuer ethnic group loosely associated with the movement of the opposition leader and first vice-president, Riek Machar, overran a government army base in the town of Nasir, near the Ethiopian border. The base commander, general David Majur Dak, was killed three days later during an evacuation attempt by the UN, alongside a UN worker and dozens of soldiers.
The government responded by arresting dozens of opposition figures in Juba, including the minister of petroleum, Puot Kang Chol. They were accused of being 'in conflict with the law' by the government spokesperson Michael Makuei Lueth, who blamed them for inciting those in Nasir.
An aerial bombardment campaign was also launched in Upper Nile, involving the 'use of improvised air-dropped incendiary weapons [that] killed and horrifically burned dozens of people, including children, and destroyed civilian infrastructure', according to Human Rights Watch.
To counter rising instability, the South Sudanese government asked the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) for help, based on a pre-existing military cooperation agreement. But Machar denounced the UPDF deployment as a violation of the 2018 arms embargo and the peace treaty, which ended five years of fighting that killed about 400,000 people.
On 23 March, he said in a letter to the UN that the Ugandan intervention may lead to the collapse of the agreement. It was the last time Machar communicated publicly. Three days later, he was placed under house arrest.
Amnesty International has also decried the involvement of Ugandan soldiers and called on the UN security council to renew the arms embargo when it expires at the end of this month.
The government has repeatedly emphasised its commitment to the peace process. But calls for an end to the violence and Machar's release have been ignored, and the bombardment of opposition strongholds has continued in several parts of the country.
A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in the town of Old Fangak, a safe haven for thousands of flood-displaced Nuer people in northern Jonglei state, was bombed on 3 May. Seven died and many were wounded in an attack that MSF denounced as a 'deliberate bombing' of the facility.
Progress since the 2018 peace agreement has been slow. As part of the deal, and under pressure from the international community, Kiir agreed to share power with Machar, his longtime opponent. A unity government was formed in 2020, whose task was to unify the rival armed forces, reform the country and organise its first elections since independence in 2011.
But an election initially envisioned for December 2022 has been postponed twice, and is now scheduled for December 2026.
Seeing the peace process in tatters is particularly daunting for those who depend on it to rebuild their lives.
John (not his real name), 55, lived in an overcrowded camp for internally displaced people (IDP) next to the Unmiss base on the outskirts of Juba for 11 years. Like tens of thousands of Nuer, he had run to the UN for protection at the beginning of the civil war in December 2013 (the camp was under UN peacekeepers' protection until 2020).
But in October last year, he left 'because there are no humanitarian services and no food here', and moved into a friend's mud house in nearby Khor Ramla. There, he was trying to survive by working in agriculture and artisanal gold mining. When clashes erupted at several nearby military camps after 24 March, John says he became a target.
'After the army bombed Wunaliet, they attacked the opposition at other training centres and dispersed the soldiers [loyal to Riek Machar]' he says. 'Then they came for us, the Nuer staying in Khor Ramla, to take our shelters, and to kill us.' When the government soldiers started shooting, he escaped, barefoot, at night. More than a month later, injuries on his feet have still not healed. He says one of his colleagues was killed.
John returned to the camp next to Unmiss on 28 March. According to humanitarian agencies, 4,000 people moved to IDP camps in March, 'as a precaution while tensions and fears of intercommunal violence are high'. But he does not feel safe. Five young men have been shot dead near the camp since the Nasir crisis, according to multiple sources, but 'the families do not want to open cases because they are afraid', John says.
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Several others have disappeared. John gives the names of a woman who went to collect firewood and never came back, and of a man who went to his usual place to make charcoal, but never returned. 'We live in fear, we can't go out for our subsistence, and we have no idea what will happen next,' he says. 'What we need is protection from the peacekeepers until every chapter of the peace agreement is implemented.'
Priyanka Chowdhury, a spokesperson for Unmiss, says: 'We have strengthened our countrywide protection efforts, including intensifying patrols and engagement with community leaders at internal displacement sites.' She emphasises, however, that 'the government of South Sudan is primarily responsible for protecting civilians'.
On 7 March, when Kiir announced the death of Dak, the base commander in Nasir, he asked citizens 'not to take the law into their hands' and repeated his promise: 'I will never take this country back to war.' He also regretted that a 'normal routine with the armed forces became politicised', referring to the rotation of military personnel in Nasir, which had triggered local hostility.
Questions have been raised over why the government didn't deploy the Necessary Unified Forces (NUF), the national army envisioned by the peace agreement, to quell tensions in the north. The government blamed the arms embargo, saying the NUF could not be deployed to conflict areas without proper weapons.
In the meantime, South Sudan's tired and traumatised population is left wondering 'who will bring peace', says Jackline Nasiwa, executive director of the Centre for Inclusive Governance, Peace and Justice.
'The people of South Sudan cannot heal in an environment of unending violence and political uncertainty,' Nasiwa told the UN security council on 16 April. Despite its flaws, she believes the 2018 peace agreement remains 'the only viable option for the people of South Sudan to transition to democracy', stressing that 'the immediate needs on the ground are for civilian protection and unobstructed aid delivery'.
On 8 April, students are waiting for the start of classes at a newly built secondary school next to Gorom refugee camp, 20km to the south-west of Juba. Mawichnyun Gatduong, 19, from the northern city of Bentiu, sits in the bright white classroom with a mix of students from nearby villages and Sudanese refugees staying in the camp.
'We have all heard the gunshots, and we didn't come to school for several days,' Gatduong says, referring to fighting around military camps south of Juba.
'I'm so worried about the situation because we don't know if they will end the war or not.
'It can affect young people like us, because someone can catch you and force you to be a soldier,' he says, advising other youths 'to be patient, stay in one place and not to move around apart from going to school'.
His dream is to become a doctor. 'It is the only thing I am struggling for.'