The South Sudan Emergency

As a result of the South Sudan emergency, there are over 2.3 million refugees and asylum seekers from this country in the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region. The emergency can be seen to have originated with the South Sudanese Civil War of 2013 to 2018. This blog post will cover the Civil War, and other developments during and since then which have contributed to the state of emergency.

The Civil War began in 2013, with President Kiir of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) accusing his former deputy Machar, amongst others, of attempting to overthrow him. Machar denied this and created the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO). Another element to the divide is that Kiir represented the Dinka ethnic group, whilst Machar represented the Nuer people. These two groups fought, and the Ugandan army joined on the side of the SPLM.

Despite the efforts of groups such as the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), multiple ceasefire agreements were broken. Following one of these ceasefires, Machar once again became Kiir’s deputy in 2016. However, the fighting restarted so the SPLM-IO fled the capital and Kiir stripped Machar of his title once more. The war then officially ended in 2018, with the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). Machar became Kiir’s deputy yet again in 2020.

The Civil War disrupted agriculture, with levels of food insecurity so high in some areas that it constituted famine. Despite the signing of the peace agreement in 2018, the lasting effects of the Civil War have prolonged the issue of food shortages. There have also been environmental issues, with erratic rainfall, flooding and pest outbreaks.

The Civil War involved many human rights abuses, such as the massacre by the official army of South Sudan of thousands of Nuer civilians in 2013. However, human rights abuses in South Sudan did not end with the signing of the peace agreement in 2018. For example, the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS) recently presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council. This accuses senior officials of bombing civilians and conscripting children.

A significant example of the sporadic violence that has occurred since the end of the Civil War was seen in the city of Nasir in 2025. The official army of South Sudan clashed with the Nuer White Army, which Kiir accused of being supported by the SPLM-IO. Machar has therefore been suspended as Kiir’s deputy since then, and was later charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity. The SPLM-IO says this means the 2018 peace agreement is no longer valid, and many experts have suggested that another civil war could be on the horizon.

Due to this situation, there are over 2.3 million refugees and asylum seekers from South Sudan in the region, with 818,000 people internally displaced. In addition to this, the ongoing Sudanese Civil War means South Sudan has received 2.4 million Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese refugee returnees since April 2023. Other countries that continue to host South Sudanese refugees, such as Ethiopia and Uganda, also struggle with limited resources and are therefore not equipped to deal with those in need of aid.

For more information on the South Sudanese emergency, please see https://www.unhcr.org/uk/emergencies/south-sudan-emergency and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c302m85q54lt.