Instability in South Sudan

Despite repeated attempts at peace agreements and cease-fires in 2015, 2017, and 2018, political violence and instability have persisted between government forces and opposition factions in South Sudan. After nearly five years of civil war, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar—the heads of the two main opposing political coalitions—participated in negotiations in June 2018, resulting in the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan [PDF]. The peace deal led to a cease-fire and the formation of a unity government, but implementation of the agreement has been slow, and violence has persisted. 

In 2024, additional peacekeepers and urgent forces were deployed to hotspots in South Sudan after an escalation in intercommunal violence led to an increase in civilian deaths, abductions, and displacements. Meanwhile, South Sudan continues to suffer from one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, magnified by the worsening effects of climate change, macroeconomic shocks, and spillover from the nearby civil war in Sudan. Long-delayed elections scheduled for December 2024 have been further postponed to December 2026. 

Background

In 1956, Britain and Egypt relinquished their colonial control over Sudan, forming the newly independent Republic of Sudan. After independence, internal divisions between the wealthier north and less-developed south triggered decades of violent conflict, including two civil wars. The second Sudanese civil war lasted from 1983 to 2005 and ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In 2011, nearly 99 percent of South Sudanese voted in favor of the independence referendum, and South Sudan officially gained independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011. 

In the early years of South Sudan’s independence, peace processes failed to address long-standing grievances and widespread disenfranchisement. Weak governance and pre-existing ethnic tensions plunged the newly independent state into political turmoil. Tensions erupted into civil war in December 2013 following a political struggle between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar. President Kiir accused Vice President Machar of plotting a coup d’état against him, leading to Machar’s removal as vice president. Soon after, violence erupted between presidential guard soldiers from the two largest ethnic groups in South Sudan. Soldiers from the Dinka ethnic group aligned with Kiir, and those from the Nuer ethnic group supported Machar. Violence quickly spread to the states of Jonglei, Upper Nile, and Unity. 

From the outbreak of conflict, armed groups targeted civilians along ethnic lines, committed rape and sexual violence, destroyed property, looted villages, and recruited children into their ranks. Although official casualty figures are hard to verify, a study estimated that nearly 400,000 people were killed during the war, with an additional four million displaced internally or forced to flee the country.

In late December 2013, the UN Security Council authorized a rapid deployment of about 6,000 security forces, in addition to the 7,600 peacekeepers already in the country, to aid in state-building efforts. In May 2014, the Security Council voted in a rare move to shift the mission’s mandate from state-building to civilian protection, authorizing UN troops to use force. Since reprioritizing protection, the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan has faced extreme challenges due to the deterioration of the security situation and its complex relationship with the government of the Republic of South Sudan. The UN authorized the deployment of an additional four thousand peacekeepers as part of a regional protection force in 2016, although their arrival was delayed until August 2017.

Violence also prevented farmers from planting or harvesting crops, causing food shortages nationwide. In July 2014, the UN Security Council declared South Sudan’s food crisis the “worst in the world.” Famine was declared in South Sudan during the first few months of 2017, with nearly five million people at risk from food insecurity. Critical food shortages have continued since then, with the number of people facing food insecurity surpassing peak civil war levels.

Under the threat of international sanctions and following several rounds of negotiations supported by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Kiir signed a peace agreement with Machar in August 2015. As the first step toward ending the civil war, Machar returned to Juba in April 2016 and was again sworn in as vice president after spending more than two years in exile. Soon after his return, violence broke out between government forces and opposition factions, once more displacing tens of thousands of people. Machar fled the country and was eventually detained in South Africa. In 2017 and 2018, a series of cease-fires were negotiated and subsequently violated between the two sides and other factions. 

After nearly five years of civil war, Kiir and Machar entered negotiations mediated by Uganda and Sudan in June 2018. Later that month, they signed the Khartoum Declaration of Agreement, which included a cease-fire and a commitment to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement to end the conflict. Despite sporadic violations over the ensuing weeks, Kiir and Machar signed a final cease-fire and power-sharing agreement in August 2018. This agreement was followed by a peace agreement to end the civil war signed by the government, Machar’s opposition party, and several other rebel factions. The Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan included a new power-sharing structure and reinstated Machar as vice president. Kiir and Machar formed a unity government in 2020 after delaying the original deadline twice.

Recent Developments

In reaction to overwhelming violence against civilians in the civil war, the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (UNMISS) established large-scale camps meant to protect civilians from ongoing violence. UNMISS began to scale back personnel at these civilian protection sites in the fall of 2020 in favor of responding more flexibly to violence in the country, raising questions about the return of refugees and government provision of security across the country.

Since the end of the civil war, increasing intercommunal violence and attacks, the threat of the peace process unraveling, and dire humanitarian conditions across large swaths of South Sudan have placed renewed urgency on improving security and meeting basic protection needs for South Sudan’s civilians. The situation worsened in April 2023 when fighting erupted in neighboring Sudan, sending an exodus of refugees, including many South Sudanese, fleeing southward to South Sudan. Violent clashes and hunger have afflicted overcrowded camps, and the government and aid organizations in South Sudan lack the resources to meet humanitarian needs. In 2023, more than 7.7 million people, or two-thirds of the population, faced severe food insecurity—the worst hunger crisis the country has ever faced. Since May 2024, the country has experienced heavy rains and extreme flooding, which have devastated villages and farmland. This is expected to worsen the hunger crisis and could impact more than three million people. Moreover, the UN also extended sanctions on South Sudan through 2024, citing human rights violations.

Years after President Salva Kiir and former opposition leader Riek Machar formed a unity government in 2020, there has been slow progress in implementing the 2018 peace agreement [PDF]. Implementation was initially scheduled for February 2023, but the government has extended the transitional period to February 2025. Many issues remain unaddressed, including security arrangements, institutional reforms, and electoral preparations. Although the unity government remains intact, security sector reforms have languished as skeptical parties do not trust each other and hold back their best fighters in anticipation of a possible return to fighting. 

Long-delayed national elections, initially scheduled for December 2024, have been postponed to 2026. President Salva Kiir has declared his intention to run in what he claims will be a free and fair race. However, a persistent rift between Kiir and Machar, the leaders of the largest civil war factions, has raised fears that violence could flare up in the lead-up to elections. Meanwhile, an armed insurgency [PDF] in the south of the country, led by Thomas Cirillo and his National Salvation Front (NSF), poses a severe threat to civilians and further endangers the peace process.

Political tension and violence have significantly escalated since the beginning of 2025, jeopardizing South Sudan’s peace process and political transition. Clashes between the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF), the state’s official military force, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLA/IO), the military wing of Vice President Machar’s party, were first reported in January in Western Equatoria state, but have since intensified. On February 14, intense fighting erupted between the SSPDF and an armed youth offshoot of the White Army (a militia affiliated with the SPLA/IO) in Upper Nile state. The SPPDF later conducted airstrikes on February 25 in response to what it claimed was a large-scale offensive mounted by the White Army and the SPLA/IO. 

The crisis has since worsened. On March 4, the militia overran an army base in Nasir, a major town near the Ethiopian border in Upper Nile. Several opposition leaders and allies of Vice President Machar were arrested the following day, and Machar’s house was surrounded by army forces, effectively placing him under house arrest. Though several have since been released, tensions continue to worsen. A prominent SSPDF general and dozens of soldiers were killed in a botched UN extraction from the overrun Nasir base on March 7. Ugandan troops have also reportedly deployed to Juba to protect Kiir and his allies. 

As President Kiir’s control over key political figures slowly weakens, the government’s position looks increasingly fragile. South Sudan has faced a fiscal crisis since 2024 when fighting in neighboring Sudan burst a critical pipeline used to export oil and cut nearly two-thirds of the state’s revenue. 

Amid a deteriorating security environment, fighting in Sudan could spill over into South Sudan, with the Sudanese army particularly interested in establishing itself in the Upper Nile region to prevent the Rapid Support Forces from pushing further eastward.