Another civil war looms in South Sudan

Residents of Juba, the capital of South Sudan, are familiar with violence. When civil war erupted in 2013, two years after independence from Sudan, the city was the scene of ethnic massacres and looting. After a ceasefire collapsed in 2016, Juba was a war zone for days. By the time the conflict ended in 2018, more than 400,000 people had been killed.

Many South Sudanese worry that Juba could soon be consumed by violence again. In 2020 the two main adversaries in the civil war formed a unity government. Yet the truce between Salva Kiir, the president, and Riek Machar, the vice-president, and their respective ethnic groups, Dinkas and Nuers, looks increasingly shaky. If it collapses, fighting could quickly engulf the country. Worse still, it could merge with Sudan’s civil war across the border.

The latest escalation came on March 7th when a general and multiple soldiers were killed in an attack on a UN helicopter by a Nuer militia known as the White Army, which fought alongside Mr Machar in the civil war. They had been trying to leave Nasir, a town engulfed in fighting in the oil-producing Upper Nile state near the border with Sudan (see map). Mr Kiir has had several of his rival’s allies arrested since the violence erupted last month.

The power-sharing deal has always been fragile. But the war in Sudan has made things much worse. For the past year it has prevented the export of about two-thirds of South Sudan’s oil—the petrostate’s economic lifeline. Mr Kiir, who relies on oil money to hold his government together, has embarked on a firing spree, ditching several close allies. He “feels threatened” by his lack of resources, says Daniel Akech of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a Brussels-based think-tank.

A succession struggle is adding to the uncertainty. The 73-year-old Mr Kiir is reportedly unwell and believed to be grooming a close adviser as his replacement. Veterans in the ruling party are said to be unhappy with his choice of successor.

The immediate trigger for the current crisis may be regional. Sudan’s army is understood to resent Mr Kiir’s perceived closeness to the Rapid Support Forces, the army’s adversary in Sudan’s civil war. Sudanese troops may be arming the White Army in response. By contrast Uganda, another neighbour, has sent troops to Juba to shore up Mr Kiir’s government. When outsiders get involved, local conflicts in South Sudan tend to turn into full-blown war, says Alan Boswell, also of ICG.

For now, the fighting remains far from the capital. Regional leaders, who convened a virtual emergency summit on March 12th, want to keep it that way. So do outsiders. “This region cannot take another war,” says Nicholas Haysom, head of the UN mission in South Sudan. Sadly, that does not mean it won’t get one. ■

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