Latest news with #SPLA
Arab News
23-05-2025
- Health
- Arab News
UN urges warring sides in South Sudan to ‘pull back from the brink'
GENEVA: The UN rights chief has urged warring sides in South Sudan to pull back from the brink, warning that the human rights situation risks further deterioration as fighting intensifies. 'The escalating hostilities in South Sudan portend a real risk of further exacerbating the already dire human rights and humanitarian situation, and undermining the country's fragile peace process,' said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk. 'All parties must urgently pull back from the brink,' he added. Since May 3, fighting has intensified, with OHCHR citing reports of indiscriminate aerial bombardment and river and ground offensives by the South Sudan People's Defense Forces SSPDF on Sudan People's Liberation Army positions in parts of Fangak in Jonglei State and in Tonga County in Upper Nile. Clashes between South Sudan's army and fighters backing the rival to President Salva Kiir have killed at least 75 civilians since February, the UN human rights chief said on Friday. Dozens more have been injured and thousands forced to flee their homes, said the commissioner. He expressed concern over arbitrary detentions and a rise in hate speech since February. South Sudan, the world's youngest country after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, was plunged into a violent civil war between 2013 and 2018 that claimed around 400,000 lives. South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, was plunged into a civil war between 2013 and 2018 that left around 400,000 dead and 4 million displaced. A 2018 power-sharing agreement between the warring parties had allowed for a precarious calm. But for several months, violent clashes have set President Kiir's faction against supporters of his rival, Vice President Riek Machar, who was arrested in March. Civilian-populated areas have been struck, including a medical facility operated by medical charity Doctors Without Borders or MSF, Turk said. According to a UN estimate in mid-April, around 125,000 people have been displaced since the escalation of tensions. Turk said dozens of opposition politicians linked to the SPLM-IO had been arrested, including Machar, ministers, MPs and army officers, as had civilians.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
USAID: the human cost of Donald Trump's aid freeze for a war-torn part of Sudan
The day of Donald Trump's second inauguration, his incoming administration abruptly paused the work of USAID, while also claiming that it would preserve USAID's 'lifesaving and strategic aid programming'. These dramatic, overnight cuts were an unprecedented – and deadly – experiment in relation to aid spending which will have a catastrophic effect on the lives of those who depended on it. The sudden suspension of USAID is set to make the famine in Sudan the deadliest for half a century. Since the announcement I've been working to see the impact of these cuts with a team of Sudanese researchers in South Kordofan State (Sudan), including from the South Kordofan-Blue Nile Coordination Unit, as part of my famine-focused project. When war erupted in Khartoum in April 2023, the southern region of South Kordofan was relatively peaceful, so large numbers of people fled there for safety. But most fled with no food, so local people had to work out how to support the new arrivals. Many decided to host families, sharing what little food they had for themselves, believing that international aid would be made available. Without this aid, these local humanitarians are now themselves also facing serious shortages. The timing and abrupt nature of the shuttering of USAID has made this particularly dangerous. South Kordofan sits on the border with South Sudan. Like much of the country, it's an agricultural region and in times of peace, people are able to grow crops and raise livestock. The region also has a long history of exporting livestock and commercially grown crops. However, this food trade has been largely extractive as it followed colonial agricultural schemes run by British imperial agents and their elite indigenous associates that often left locals in poverty. After independence, the region suffered through decades of war between the Sudan government to the north and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which fought a campaign that culminated in the foundation of South Sudan in 2011 (with the support of the US). South Kordofan and its SPLA supporters were trapped in the middle. People in South Kordofan long for peace and a state that provides them with basic services, so they wouldn't depend so heavily on humanitarian support. Since the 1980s, famine mortality has been dramatically reduced by international aid. In fact, the US response to the famine of the mid-1980s under the then president, Ronald Reagan, whose administration provided more than US$1 billion (£766 million), saved hundreds of thousands of lives. This period became known in Sudan as 'Reagan's famine'. Now in South Kordofan they are calling the hardship created by the influx of starving people fleeing fighting further north the 'Hemedti famine', after Mohamed Hamdan 'Hemedti' Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is fighting the national army, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) run by rival warlord General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Many of those who have fled from urban centres lack the skills to survive and are far from their family networks, making them particularly vulnerable. Sudanese people have a strong moral sense – and sometimes a legal obligation to help family members. This clearly doesn't necessarily apply to most of those fleeing the fighting. But there is also a strong tradition of helping all people and even strangers in need, which people in South Kordofan have had to navigate. Many locals chose to provide lifesaving local humanitarian support. But that is of necessity and finite. There is now a desperate need for a massive increase in aid. In such emergencies, international aid plays a key role in topping up the food that people grow and gather for themselves, and has made the difference between life and death. This is why the curtailing of USAID support is so catastrophic. Even if US support were to be fully restored, the pause has already had deadly consequences. The sudden stopping of many local NGO worker salaries, a key source of income in the region, is another disaster. Each salary supported dozens of family members. The 2025 aid cuts are set to be devastating for more people. Things are already critical. It has been estimated that half a half a million people died from hunger and disease across Sudan in 2024 alone. I'm now getting reports from South Kordofan of households not lighting a fire for up to four days at a time, which means the family is not eating. And, as ever, it is the children and the elderly who are particularly vulnerable. The consequences of famine are lasting. People in South Kordofan are reporting an increase in criminality as people steal in order to survive, which leaves lasting mistrust and social division. Famine also leaves a legacy of shame because people are witnessing their loved ones suffer and die. When people die in times of famine the living often do not even have the energy or resources to provide a dignified burial. The Trump administration could not have turned off USAID support at a worse time. Aid logistics in Sudan follow a seasonal cycle. In the wetter months from May to November, the roads to South Kordofan that aid organisations depend on for food distribution become impassable. So aid for the hungriest months from April to August, when stores are running low but the harvest in September has not yet come, must be delivered in the driest months before the rains start. USAID was halted in January, at the heart of the dry season, so this opportunity has been missed. Meanwhile north-south flights in Sudan have been prohibited by the Sudan government since the civil war flared in 2023. There has been a report that the government will also ban incoming aid flights from Kenya due to Nairobi's alleged support for the RSF. Last month, the founder of Sudanese thinktank Confluence Advisory, Kholood Khair, told journalists: 'It's difficult to overstate how devastating the USAID cut will be for Sudan, not just because Sudan is the world's largest humanitarian crisis but also because the US was Sudan's largest humanitarian donor.' We're now seeing that devastation getting worse by the day. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Naomi Ruth Pendle receives funding from the British Academy and the European Research Council.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Riek Machar, South Sudan's embattled vice president
(Reuters) - The reported house arrest of Riek Machar, the former bush rebel leader who became South Sudan's First Vice President, marks the latest turn in the turbulent relationship with his rival, President Salva Kiir, after a five-year civil war. The two men, now in their early 70s, launched a conflict in 2013 that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, as the newly independent nation fractured along ethnic lines with Kiir leading largely Dinka forces against Nuer fighters allied with Machar. That war ended with a peace deal in 2018 but their bitter rivalry cast a long shadow over the agreement's implementation and ethnic fissures have regularly resurfaced in recent years, sparking fears of a renewed conflict. Clashes erupted this year in Upper Nile State between South Sudanese troops and the White Army, a predominantly Nuer militia that fought alongside Machar's forces in the civil war. The government this month accused Machar's SPLM-IO party of collaborating with the militia, in an echo of the tensions that saw Kiir sack Machar as vice president in 2013 and led to the outbreak of war. The SPLM-IO has denied ongoing links with the White Army. Between 2013 and 2018, fighting between troops loyal to both men shut down oil fields, forced a third of the country's population from their homes and killed more than 400,000. FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE Machar's role in the south's fight for independence from Sudan had always been controversial. In 1991, he fell out with John Garang, leader of the pro-independence SPLA rebel movement, leaving his post as a commander in the group after a disagreement. The same year, Machar was blamed for an ethnic massacre of Dinka people in Bor carried out by Nuer fighters loyal to him. Machar was seen by some former rebel comrades as a traitor because of the 1997 Khartoum peace accord he signed with the Sudanese government, which rewarded him with the positions of vice-president of Sudan and chairman of the coordinating council that technically ruled the south. Machar rejoined the SPLA in 2002, and after a 2005 peace deal that ended civil war and established southern autonomy, he became vice-president of the South, retaining the position after South Sudan's independence in 2011 until his sacking in 2013. DISMISSAL Machar's dismissal was one of the factors that sparked a return to civil war in December 2013. At the time Kiir accused him of attempting a power grab, which Machar denied. An African Union Commission of Inquiry found no basis for the coup allegation. Several peace deals failed, including one in 2015 that briefly halted hostilities but fell apart after Machar returned to Juba the following year. When the civil war ended, he struck a conciliatory note. "I want to assure you that we will work collectively to end your long suffering," Machar told South Sudanese when he was sworn in as vice president in the unity government in 2020. Machar trained as an engineer at the University of Khartoum, studied at Scotland's University of Strathclyde and holds a PhD from the University of Bradford in England. In 1991, he married a British aid worker, Emma McCune, and their life together in the war-torn south Sudanese bush became the subject of newspaper articles and a book. McCune died aged 29 in a car crash in Nairobi in 1993. Machar's second wife, Angelina Teny, has previously served as defence minister and was appointed interior minister in 2023. In an apparent attempt to boost his stature as a leader of the Nuer, South Sudan's second largest tribe after the Dinka, Machar has kept in his possession a ceremonial stick once carried by a famous Nuer prophet, Ngundeng Bong. The "dang" stick, made from the root of a tamarind tree and decorated with copper wire, was looted by British colonial troops before being returned to South Sudan in 2009 by British academic Douglas Johnson.
Reuters
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Riek Machar, South Sudan's embattled vice president
March 27 (Reuters) - The reported house arrest of Riek Machar, the former bush rebel leader who became South Sudan's First Vice President, marks the latest turn in the turbulent relationship with his rival, President Salva Kiir, after a five-year civil war. The two men, now in their early 70s, launched a conflict in 2013 that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, as the newly independent nation fractured along ethnic lines with Kiir leading largely Dinka forces against Nuer fighters allied with Machar. That war ended with a peace deal in 2018 but their bitter rivalry cast a long shadow over the agreement's implementation and ethnic fissures have regularly resurfaced in recent years, sparking fears of a renewed conflict. Clashes erupted this year in Upper Nile State between South Sudanese troops and the White Army, a predominantly Nuer militia that fought alongside Machar's forces in the civil war. The government this month accused Machar's SPLM-IO party of collaborating with the militia, in an echo of the tensions that saw Kiir sack Machar as vice president in 2013 and led to the outbreak of war. The SPLM-IO has denied ongoing links with the White Army. Between 2013 and 2018, fighting between troops loyal to both men shut down oil fields, forced a third of the country's population from their homes and killed more than 400,000. FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE Machar's role in the south's fight for independence from Sudan had always been controversial. In 1991, he fell out with John Garang, leader of the pro-independence SPLA rebel movement, leaving his post as a commander in the group after a disagreement. The same year, Machar was blamed for an ethnic massacre of Dinka people in Bor carried out by Nuer fighters loyal to him. Machar was seen by some former rebel comrades as a traitor because of the 1997 Khartoum peace accord he signed with the Sudanese government, which rewarded him with the positions of vice-president of Sudan and chairman of the coordinating council that technically ruled the south. Machar rejoined the SPLA in 2002, and after a 2005 peace deal that ended civil war and established southern autonomy, he became vice-president of the South, retaining the position after South Sudan's independence in 2011 until his sacking in 2013. DISMISSAL Machar's dismissal was one of the factors that sparked a return to civil war in December 2013. At the time Kiir accused him of attempting a power grab, which Machar denied. An African Union Commission of Inquiry found no basis for the coup allegation. Several peace deals failed, including one in 2015 that briefly halted hostilities but fell apart after Machar returned to Juba the following year. When the civil war ended, he struck a conciliatory note. "I want to assure you that we will work collectively to end your long suffering," Machar told South Sudanese when he was sworn in as vice president in the unity government in 2020. Machar trained as an engineer at the University of Khartoum, studied at Scotland's University of Strathclyde and holds a PhD from the University of Bradford in England. In 1991, he married a British aid worker, Emma McCune, and their life together in the war-torn south Sudanese bush became the subject of newspaper articles and a book. McCune died aged 29 in a car crash in Nairobi in 1993. Machar's second wife, Angelina Teny, has previously served as defence minister and was appointed interior minister in 2023. In an apparent attempt to boost his stature as a leader of the Nuer, South Sudan's second largest tribe after the Dinka, Machar has kept in his possession a ceremonial stick once carried by a famous Nuer prophet, Ngundeng Bong. The "dang" stick, made from the root of a tamarind tree and decorated with copper wire, was looted by British colonial troops before being returned to South Sudan in 2009 by British academic Douglas Johnson.
