The Constitution of South Sudan describes the country as "a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-racial entity where such diversities peacefully coexist".[1] Part One of the Constitution also states that "South Sudan is founded on justice, equality, respect for human dignity and advancement of human rights and fundamental freedoms".[1]
Part Two of the Constitution of South Sudan includes the Bill of Rights and provides a comprehensive description of rights and liberties protected under the Constitution. It states that "[all] rights and freedoms enshrined in international human rights treaties, covenants and instruments ratified or acceded to by the Republic of South Sudan will be an integral part of this Bill".[1] The Bill covers a wide range of rights in political, civil, economic, social, and cultural spheres and places an emphasis on the rights of women, children, and the disabled. The Bill also protects freedoms, such as freedom from torture, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of worship, and freedom of expression and media, among many others.[1]
Civilian collective punishment
The national army, called the Sudan People's Liberation Army, is often accused of attacking civilians on suspicion of aiding rebels.
Shilluk disarmament campaign
In the government's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)'s anti-insurgency campaign to disarm rebellions among the Shilluk and Murle, they burned scores of villages, raped hundreds of women and girls and killed an untold number of civilians.[2] Civilians alleging torture by the SPLA claim fingernails being torn out, burning plastic bags dripped on children to make their parents hand over weapons and villagers burned alive in their huts if rebels were suspected of spending the night there. The United Nations Human Rights Council reported many of these violations, and the frustrated director of one Juba-based international aid agency called them "human rights abuses off the Richter scale".[2]Human Rights Watch alleges that both the SPLA and the rebel group led by Johnson Olony were responsible for atrocities.[3]
Suppression of South Sudan Liberation Movement
The South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) led by Peter Gadet rebelled against the SPLA led government. To put down the rebellion, it was alleged that the SPLA set fire to over 7,000 homes in Unity state in May 2011.[4]
Operation Restore Peace
Beginning in March 2012, security forces executed a disarmament campaign called "Operation Restore Peace" among the Murle people in Jonglei state. Amnesty International researchers claim these security forces committed widespread torture against civilians, including children as young as 18 months.[5] A Human Rights Watch report describes how the SPLA allegedly burned and looted homes, destroyed schools, churches, and the compounds of aid agencies providing life-saving assistance. The disarmament exercise initiated ended with little success.[6]
South Sudanese Civil War
In the 2017 South Sudan famine, the government is accused by the US and aid groups among others of using starvation as a tactic of collection punishment for populations that support rebels by intentionally blocking aid.[7]
Amnesty international claimed the army suffocated to death in a shipping container more than 60 people accused of supporting the opposition.[8]
During the war for independence, more southerners died at each other's hands than were killed by northerners as a result of the infighting.[9] In the Bor massacre in 1991, an estimated 2000 civilians were killed by SPLA-Nasir and armed Nuer civilians and another estimated 25,000 died from the resulting famine in the following years.[10]
In 2010, prior to South Sudanese independence the following year, the CIA issued a warning that "over the next five years ... a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan."[2] The Nuer White Army of the LouNuer released a statement to "wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer's cattle."[11] Activists, including Minority Rights Group International, warned of genocide in Jonglei.[12]
The South Sudanese Civil War has killed up to 300,000 civilians, including notable atrocities such as the 2014 Bentiu massacre.[13] There are ethnic undertones between the Dinka and Nuer in the fighting. The United Nations rights office has described the situation in the country as "one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world." It accused the army and allied militias as allowing fighters to rape women as form of payment, as well as raid cattle in an agreement of "do what you can, take what you can."[14] A 2015 United Nations report accused the army of gang raping and burning alive of girls and women.[15] A 2015 African Union report accused both sides of rape, torture and forced cannibalism.[16]
On 23 September 2020, the Amnesty International stated that serious human rights violations continued even after the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity. The UN reports indicated that fighting between ethnic groups surged dramatically and more organized forces started participating in the violence. The violence resulted in abductions of civilians, killings of hundreds of civilians, sexual violence and the displacement of thousands.[17]
Civil liberties and freedoms
Political freedom
After South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, Salva Kiir Mayardit was elected president and revised the South Sudanese constitution to give great power to the executive. Kiir used his broad powers, which include the inability to be impeached and the authority to fire governors and dissolve parliament, to dismiss his entire cabinet and vice president Riek Machar in 2013.[18] Beginning in 2014, Kiir and the ruling elites have ruled the country in an increasingly opaque manner. The public had little say in policymaking and was ignored in discussions of the creation of a new constitution and peace talks to end the civil war.[18]
Abdel Rahman Sule, the leader of the key opposition group United Democratic Forum, has been under arrest since November 3, 2011 over allegations linking him to the formation of a new rebel group fighting against the government.[19][20] The SPLA is generally intolerant of opposition, and although there are officially five opposition parties in South Sudan, none of them have the resources or experience necessary to gain true political power.[18]
In 2015, Salva Kiir threatened to kill journalists who reported "against the country".[21] Days later, in August 2015, journalist Peter Moi was killed in a targeted attack, being the seventh journalist killed during the year. South Sudanese journalists then held a 24-hour news blackout.[22] As a result of the deterioration in the operating environment for journalists, many practice self-censorship or have left the country altogether.[18]
Civil society
South Sudanese civil society groups called on Kenya to investigate the disappearance of South Sudanese activists in Nairobi. Many point to the presence of South Sudanese security in Kenya and the alleged complicity of some Kenyan authorities.[23]
Justice system
The justice system of Sudan has insufficiently upheld equal rights for the South Sudanese people. According to Amnesty International, the government has failed to guarantee due process and fair trials, and it has also arbitrarily arrested and detained people without ensuring their right to legal counsel. The defection of many police officers, as well as other internal conflicts, has decreased the police and judiciary's ability to enforce the law, especially in areas like Jonglei, Unity, and Upper Nile.[24]
Social rights
Women's rights
Many women in South Sudan are living "without basic forms of human security, health care or economic stability".[25] According to the United Nations, 33 percent of South Sudanese women are moderately or severely food insecure.[25]
Gender-based violence
Violence against women is extremely prevalent in South Sudan. Prolonged conflict in the region leads to greater gender-based violence, such as "disruption of community and family structures, presence of arms, weakened legal and security institutions, and heightened tensions related to displacement".[26] The biggest threat of violence to women comes from within the home.[25] In 2009, 41 percent of survey respondents reported that they had experienced gender-based violence in the past year, of which the most common forms were physical violence (47%), psychological violence (44%), economic violence (30%), and sexual violence (13%).[26] In a 2011 Human Security Baseline Assessment, 59 percent of surveyed women had experienced gender-based violence at home, and 19 percent had experienced gender-based violence in their community. In a 2013 study, Jennifer Scott et al. found "an overwhelming acceptance of violence against women, by both women and men," in many communities in South Sudan.[26] The majority of survey respondents agreed that "there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten and that a woman should tolerate violence to keep her family together".[26]
A UN survey found that 70% of women who were sheltering in camps had been raped since the beginning of the conflict, with the vast majority of rapists being police and soldiers.[27] The SPLA were reported to have recruited militias and young men in Unity state to take back rebel held areas. They were given guns and their pay was what they could loot and women they could capture, who were raped.[28]
In 2021, South Sudan health authority responded to estimate of 330 cases of gender based violence like rape, physical violence and other cases of gender based violence. The In charge of gender based violence center Samuel Legge, in Juba Teaching Hospital which is the main referral hospital in Capital Juba said, the main issue is delay in reporting gender based violence cases to the center.[29]
Children's rights
Child labor
The government of South Sudan has made efforts to eliminate child labor and promote children's rights, but their attempts have been largely ineffective. Despite launching the Children, Not Soldiers campaign, a Ministry of Defense program that raised awareness about the issue of child soldiers in South Sudan, the government's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) continues to recruit child soldiers and station them in conflict-ridden areas or use them as bodyguards. The government deployed child soldiers on the front lines in opposition attacks from the Sudan People's Liberation Army – In Opposition (SPLA-IO). The SPLA-IO also recruits child soldiers to fight for them in areas like Bentiu and other parts of Unity state.[30] Even though the minimum age for voluntary military recruitment is 18, as determined by the Child Act, many child soldiers are much younger.[31]
According to the United States Department of Labor, despite the Constitution and Child Act's provisions of free primary education, parents usually end up having to pay the salaries of their children's teachers, which is often a prohibitive cost for families.[31] The cost of uniforms, high levels of food insecurity, high costs of living, and lack of access to schools due to poor infrastructure all contribute to the low levels of primary education completion in South Sudan.[31] Only 32 percent of children ages 5 to 14 attend school, and the primary education completion rate is 37 percent.[31] 46 percent of children ages 10 to 14 are working, and 11 percent combine work and school.[31]
Under current laws, children are only required to attend school until age 13. However, children are not legally allowed to work until they are 14, which leaves them the most vulnerable to child labor violations during the ages of 13 and 14.[31]
Law agencies in South Sudan have taken steps to combat child labor in creating government committees to establish referral mechanisms to report and address violations, but these agencies have been largely inactive.[31]
Nearly half of girls ages 15 to 19 are married, with some girls forced into marriage as early as age 12. Because of child marriage, only 37 percent of girls attend primary school, while 51 percent of boys do. Despite a 2008 law that protects girls from early marriage, child marriage is still extremely prevalent.[32] This is due to widespread cultural views that marrying early is in the best interest of girls, since it allows families to access resources that are traditionally paid in the dowry.[32]
Ethnic minority rights
South Sudan is an ethnically diverse country, with over 60 different major ethnic groups.[33] The largest ethnic groups are the Dinka, Nuer, and Shilluk.[34] Because of its diversity, according to scholar Jok Madut Jok, "insecurity that adopts ethnic fault lines is likely to lead to erosion of the kind of political unity that had been sustained by liberation wars and opposition to north Sudan."[35] Ethnic violence has engulfed much of South Sudan and has undermined attempts at creating ethnic cohesion.[35] It also reinforces poverty and strains ethnic relations, "leading to ethnic-based competition over limited resources and political offices."[35] Ethnic rivalries make development almost impossible due to the insecurity and violence it promotes.[35]
The domestic law of South Sudan forbids hate speech and punishes incitement to violence with 1 to 20 years of imprisonment. However, hate speech against ethnic minorities in South Sudan has continued to be practiced.[36] A UNMISS report states that "[widespread] stereotyping, the creation and use of 'enemy' images, [and] hate speech amounting to incitement to violence have also exacerbated the conflicts."[36] These messages include proposals of wiping out communities and removing ethnic groups from their lands.[36]
Religious minority rights
The Constitution of South Sudan declares the separation of religion and state and prohibits religious discrimination. It states that "[all] religions shall be treated equally, and religion of religious beliefs shall not be used for divisive purposes.[37]
In 2022, the majority of the South Sudanese population is Christian (60.5%), with a larger number of followers of animist religions (33%); there is also a sizeable Muslim minority (6%).[37]
Leaders from all major religious groups in South Sudan attend ceremonial public events.[37] Religious education is generally included in public secondary school and university curricula; Christian and Muslim private religious schools can set their own religious curriculum without government input on their content.[37]
Freedom of religion
In 2023, the country was scored 1 out of 4 for religious freedom;[38] this was mainly due to the threat of ethnic violence.
International law framework
The Republic of South Sudan voluntary pledged in October 2013 for candidature to the Human Rights Council. It stated that its interest in joining the Human Rights Council stemmed from "its desire both to contribute to the promotion of human rights, based on the principles that inspired its liberation struggle, and to take advantage of its membership to enhance its knowledge of international human rights and build its capacity to promote and protect those rights".[1]
In 2013, South Sudan acceded to several treaties and submitted them to the Legislative Assembly for adoption. These treaties include:[1]
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 1966
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, 1981
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, 1979
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1965
Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment, 1984
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, 1997
In 2015, South Sudan ratified five international human rights treaties. These treaties are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman of Degrading Treatment of Punishment and its Optional Protocol, and Convention on the Rights of the Child.[39]
Sudan's human rights record has been widely condemned. Some human rights organizations have documented a variety of abuses and atrocities carried out by the Sudanese government over the past several years under the rule of Omar al-Bashir. The 2009 Human Rights Report by the United States Department of State noted serious concerns over human rights violations by the government and militia groups. Capital punishment, including crucifixion, is used for many crimes. In September, 2019, the government of Sudan signed an agreement with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to open a UN Human Rights Office in Khartoum and field offices in Darfur, Blue Nile, Southern Kordofan and East Sudan. In July 2020, during the 2019–2021 Sudanese transition to democracy, Justice Minister Nasredeen Abdulbari stated that "all the laws violating the human rights in Sudan" were to be scrapped, and for this reason, Parliament passed a series of laws in early July 2020.
Jonglei State is a state of South Sudan with Bor as its centre of government and the biggest city. Jonglei state comprises nine counties: Bor, Akobo, Ayod, Uror, Duk, Nyirol, Pigi, Twic East, and Fangak. Jonglei State is the largest state by area before reorganisation, with an area of approximately 122,581 km2, as well as the most populous according to the 2008 census conducted in present-day South Sudan's second period of autonomy. The boundaries of the state were again changed as a result of a peace agreement signed on 22 February 2020.
The Second Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile. It lasted for almost 22 years and is one of the longest civil wars on record. The war resulted in the independence of South Sudan 6 years after the war ended.
The South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) is an armed group that operates in the Upper Nile Region of South Sudan. The group's creation was announced in November 1999 by people of the Nuer ethnicity who were in both the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the government-allied South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) gathered in Waat. The SSLM was declared to be unaligned in the Second Sudanese Civil War, then entering its sixteenth year. The name "South Sudan Liberation Movement" was decided upon the next year, borrowing from the earlier Southern Sudan Liberation Movement, which existed in the 1980s.
Slavery in Sudan began in ancient times, and had a resurgence during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). During the Trans-Saharan slave trade, many Nilotic peoples from the lower Nile Valley were purchased as slaves and brought to work elsewhere in North Africa and the Orient by Nubians, Egyptians, Berbers and Arabs.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, also known as Salva Kiir, is a South Sudanese politician who has been the President of South Sudan since its independence on 9 July 2011. Prior to independence, he was the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, as well as First Vice President of Sudan, from 2005 to 2011. He was named Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLM/A) in 2005, following the death of John Garang.
The Murle are a Surmic ethnic group inhabiting the Pibor County and Boma area in Greater Pibor Administrative Area, South Sudan, as well as parts of southwestern Ethiopia. They have also been referred as Beir by the Dinka and as Jebe by the Luo and Nuer, among others. The Murle speak the Murle language, which is part of the Surmic language family. The language cluster includes some adjoining groups in Sudan, as well as some non-contiguous Surmic populations in southwestern Ethiopia.
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.
The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the army of the Republic of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a key participant of the Second Sudanese Civil War, led by John Garang. After Garang's death in 2005, Salva Kiir was named the SPLA's new Commander-in-Chief. As of 2010, the SPLA was divided into divisions of 10,000–14,000 soldiers.
Sudanese nomadic conflicts are non-state conflicts between rival nomadic tribes taking place in the territory of Sudan and, since 2011, South Sudan. Conflict between nomadic tribes in Sudan is common, with fights breaking out over scarce resources, including grazing land, cattle and drinking water. Some of the tribes involved in these clashes have been the Messiria, Maalia, Rizeigat and Bani Hussein Arabic tribes inhabiting Darfur and West Kordofan, and the Dinka, Nuer and Murle African ethnic groups inhabiting South Sudan. Conflicts have been fueled by other major wars taking place in the same regions, in particular the Second Sudanese Civil War, the War in Darfur and the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Peter Gatdet Yak, better known as Peter Gadet, was a South Sudanese general and SPLA commander who became the leader of the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), a rebel movement in South Sudan.
South Sudan, officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a country in East Africa which is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya including the vast swamp region of the Sudd, formed by the White Nile and known locally as the Bahr al Jabal, meaning "Mountain Sea". It is a landlocked country. The population of nearly 12.7 million people in 2024, and Juba is the capital and largest city. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan on 9 July 2011, making it the most recent sovereign state with widespread recognition as of 2024.
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 Nuer White Army, sometimes decapitalised as the "white army", is a semi-official name for a militant organisation formed by the Nuer people of central and eastern Greater Upper Nile in modern-day South Sudan as early as 1991. According to the Small Arms Survey, it arose from the 1991 schism within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for the dual purpose of defending Nuer cattle herds from neighbouring groups and fighting in the Second Sudanese Civil War between the SPLM/A and the Sudanese government.
The South Sudanese Civil War was a multi-sided civil war in South Sudan between forces of the government and opposition forces. In December 2013, President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar and 10 others of attempting a coup d'état. Machar denied trying to start a coup and fled to lead the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO). Fighting broke out between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and SPLM-IO, igniting the civil war. Ugandan troops were deployed to fight alongside the South Sudanese government. The United Nations has peacekeepers in the country as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
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 has been described by The Economist as the "worst massacre" of the civil war.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, also known as the anti-governmental forces (AGF), is a mainly South Sudanese political party and rebel group that split from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in 2013, due to political tensions between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar over leadership of the SPLM. Tensions grew between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar and South Sudan plunged into the South Sudanese Civil War.
The disarmament of the Lou Nuer was a forcible disarmament campaign undertaken by the SPLA in Southern Sudan in December 2005. While other groups had been peacefully disarmed, the Lou section of the Nuer in Northern Jonglei State refused to comply. The SPLA organized a force under Peter Bol Kong to forcibly disarm the Lou Nuer, whose White Army resisted until a defeat in the battle of Motot, after which they fled the area.
George Athor's rebellion was an uprising in the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region which lasted from April 2010 to December 2011. Organized by South Sudanese military commander and politician George Athor, the conflict mainly took place in the states of Upper Nile and Jonglei as well as some border areas.
In January 2022, armed Murle militias attacked Bor Dinka villages in Jonglei State, South Sudan, killing dozens of people.
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