South Sudan remains one of the least peaceful countries in the world, according to the 2023 Global Peace Index. South Sudan experienced a 1% deterioration of its overall score in the 2023 report, owing to deteriorations in the “ongoing conflict” and “militarization” domains.
South Sudan’s latest peace agreement, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), was signed in 2018. The agreement led to a fragile truce and resulted in the formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity in February 2020.
In March 2023, President Kiir appointed a member of his own party as defense minister. The move breaches part of the peace deal in which the position should be selected by the party of First Vice President and opposition leader, Riek Machar.
It is widely expected that the first general national elections will be held in South Sudan in December 2024, followed by the conclusion of the transitional arrangements set out and agreed to in the R-ARCSS.
Amnesty International documented potential war crimes and other violations during the fighting in Western Equatoria in 2021. The various forms of violence threaten and undermine people’s physical and mental well-being.
In September 2022, a UN human rights team said incidents of rape had become so common in South Sudan that many women no longer report repeated sexual attacks. Rape victims lack access to medical and trauma care.
Community leaders and other individuals involved in peacebuilding work in South Sudan were interviewed by The New Humanitarian and called for long-term initiatives that build positive ties between communities that have been divided by a civil war that cleaved groups along ethnic lines.
South Sudan continues to be one of the most dangerous places for aid workers. On Nov. 6, 2023, a South Sudanese national aid worker was killed while on a field trip to respond to a suspected measles outbreak in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area.
In January 2024, 52 people, including women and children, were killed in the Abyei region, a disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan. A Ghanaian peacekeeper from the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei was killed when the base in Agok town was attacked. The UN said following the attacks that armed youth from rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group have been battling over the location of an administrative boundary in the oil-rich region.
Exacerbating the humanitarian situation in South Sudan is the fighting that erupted in neighboring Sudan in mid-April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces. More than 475,000 people were recorded as crossing the border into South Sudan as of Dec. 31, 2023. The majority are South Sudanese returnees who have been residing in Sudan.
In addition to causing significant displacement, the fighting on both sides of the border is complicating and reducing humanitarian access. Although December 2023 saw a slight decrease in the number of reported incidents related to humanitarian access constraints throughout the country compared to November, “bureaucratic impediments, operational interferences and active hostilities resulted in violence against humanitarian staff.”
Thousands of people fleeing to South Sudan pass through the town of Renk, where the humanitarian situation is dire. The Renk Transit Centre was designed to accommodate around 4,000 people, but more than 23,000 are staying there. Water and sanitation services are insufficient in Renk, and cases of cholera, measles and severe malnutrition are on the rise.
The UN envoy for South Sudan, told the UN Security Council in June 2023 that the humanitarian, economic and political impacts of the Sudanese fighting are exacerbating “the existing triggers and drivers of conflict” in South Sudan, and are “complicating an already tenuous security situation across the country.”
In November 2023, the UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Hanna Serwaa Tetteh told the UN Security Council the conflict in Sudan “is profoundly affecting bilateral relations between Sudan and South Sudan, with significant humanitarian, security, economic and political consequences that are a matter of deep concern among the South Sudanese political leadership.”
