The Nilotic people are people indigenous to the South Sudan and the East Africa who speak the Nilotic languages. They inhabit South Sudan and the Gambella Region of Ethiopia, while also being a large minority in Kenya, Uganda, the north eastern border area of Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. The Nilotic peoples consist of the Dinka, the Nuer, the Shilluk, the Luo peoples, the Alur, the Anuak, the Ateker peoples, the Kalenjin people and the Karamojong people also known as the Karamojong or Karimojong,Chaga people, Ngasa people, Datooga, Samburu, and the Maa-speaking peoples.
The Dinka people are a Nilotic ethnic group native to South Sudan. The Dinka mostly live along the Nile, from Mangalla-Bor to Renk, in the region of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and the Abyei Area of the Ngok Dinka in South Sudan.
The Nuer people are a Nilotic ethnic group concentrated in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan. They also live in the Ethiopian region of Gambella. The Nuer speak the Nuer language, which belongs to the Nilotic language family. They are the second-largest ethnic group in South Sudan and the largest ethnic group in Gambella, Ethiopia. The Nuer people are pastoralists who herd cattle for a living. Their cattle serve as companions and define their lifestyle. The Nuer call themselves "Naath".
The SPLA-Nasir was a splinter faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), a rebel group that fought in the Second Sudanese Civil War. Originally created as an attempt by the Nuer tribe to replace SPLA leader John Garang in August 1991, it gradually became coopted by the government. The break away of Riek Machar from SPLM/A resulted in Nuer ethnic group massacring Garang's ethnic Dinka from Bor in the Bor massacre in 1991. This split resulted in the 1994 National Convention of New Sudan in Chukudum.
Douglas Hamilton Johnson is an American scholar who lives in Britain who specializes in the history of North East Africa, Sudan and the Southern Sudan.
Ronald Godfrey Lienhardt was a British anthropologist. He took many photographs of the Dinka people he studied. He wrote about their religion in Divinity and Experience: the Religion of the Dinka.
The Shilluk Kingdom, dominated by the Shilluk people, was located along the left bank of the White Nile in what is now South Sudan and southern Sudan. Its capital and royal residence were in the town of Fashoda. According to Shilluk folk history and neighboring accounts, the kingdom was founded by Nyikang, who probably lived in the second half of the 15th century. A Nilotic people, the Shilluk managed to establish a centralized kingdom that reached its apogee in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, during the decline of the northern Funj Sultanate. In the 19th century, the Shilluk were affected by military assaults from the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the destruction of the kingdom in the early 1860s. The Shilluk king is currently not an independent political leader, but a traditional chieftain within the governments of South Sudan and Sudan. The current Shilluk king is Reth Kwongo Dak Padiet who ascended to the throne in 1993.
The history of South Sudan comprises the history of the territory of present-day South Sudan and the peoples inhabiting the region.
Kerubino Kuanyin Bol was a Sudanese rebel leader who was one of the founders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and one of the leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the Second Sudanese Civil War and was said to have fired the first shot in the war.
Ethnic violence in South Sudan has a long history among South Sudan's varied ethnic groups. South Sudan has 64 tribes with the largest being the Dinka, who constitute about 35% of the population and predominate in government. The second largest are the Nuers. Conflict is often aggravated among nomadic groups over the issue of cattle and grazing land and is part of the wider Sudanese nomadic conflicts.
The 2014 Bentiu massacre occurred on 15 April 2014 in the town of Bentiu, in the north of South Sudan, during the South Sudanese Civil War. The attack was described by The Economist as the "worst massacre" of the civil war.
Ngundeng Bong was a prophet of the Nuer people of South Sudan believed to having been conceived by his mother Nyayiel Malual through spirit. He presented himself as being an earthly representative of Deng, the sky god of the Nuer religion. His prophecies of the breakup of Sudan are still a factor in the politics of modern South Sudan.
The Dinka–Nuer West Bank Peace & Reconciliation Conference of 1999 was held in what was then the Southern part of Sudan. It is commonly called the "Wunlit Peace Conference" after Wunlit, the village where it was held in eastern Tonj County in Bahr El Ghazal. The conference brought together Nuer from Western Upper Nile and Dinka from Tonj, Rumbek, and Yirol. It is the most prominent and comprehensively documented case of a people-to-people peace process in what is now the Republic of South Sudan.
Nyaruac Kolang was a Nuer prophetess.
Mechra el Rek was a settlement in the South Sudan.
Between February 2022 and April 2023, clashes broke out in the Abyei area of South Sudan between Twic Dinka militias against Ngok Dinka militias, regarding control of the border between Abyei and South Sudan's Twic County. The conflict ended temporarily following a ceasefire between the Twic Dinka and Ngok Dinka in May 2023. In September 2023, attacks flared up in the border area between Abyei and Twic County between Twic Dinka and Ngok Dinka youth, with several massacres against Ngok Dinka.
Nuerland is the indigenous homeland and traditional territory of the Nuer people, situated largely within South Sudan between the latitudes of 7° and 10° north and longitudes of 29° and 32° east. The region encompasses parts of the Upper Nile State, Jonglei State, Unity State, and surrounding areas, characterized by a mix of swamps, savannahs, and higher ground.
Ngundeng Pyramid, also known as Pyramid of Dengkur, was a large mound shrine constructed by the Nuer people's prophet Ngundeng Bong at the end of the nineteenth century and added to by his son Guek Ngundeng. The Ngundeng Pyramid, which was around 300 feet in circumference and 50 to 60 feet tall, cone-shaped, and encircled by a row of elephant tusks, was a symbol of the Nuer people's resistance to colonialism. The monument was dynamited on the orders of British colonial commander Percy Coriat in 1928, shortly after the first attempt to demolish it failed.
Guek Ngundeng was a Nuer people's prophet and spiritual leader proclaimed seizure by the spirit of Deng(sky God) divinity and a son of the Nuer people's prophet Ngundeng Bong. He was known to the Angelo-Egyptian colonial government in Sudan as a witch doctor. He helped rebuild the Ngundeng Pyramid a few years after his father's death. He fought the colonial government in their campaigns to demolish the Pyramid and was eventually killed in action in 1929.
The Dinka Malual, also known as the Dinka Aweil, or Malual Tueng, or just Malualjeernyang are the largest subgroup of the Dinka people. They reside primarily in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan, particularly around Aweil. They are part of the larger Nilotic ethnic group and are known for their pastoralist lifestyle, rich cultural heritage, and historical resilience.
