Mayom | |
|---|---|
Town | |
  Mayom Location in South Sudan | |
| Coordinates: 9°13′27″N29°10′00″E / 9.224042°N 29.166706°E | |
| Country |  South Sudan |
| State | Unity |
| County | Mayom County |
| Time zone | UTC+2 (CAT) |
Mayom is a community in Unity State of South Sudan to the west of Bentiu. It is the headquarters of Mayom County.
Mayom was a major cattle trading center in Western Upper Nile (now Unity State), in Bul Nuer territory. [1] In peacetime the area around Mayom was sparsely populated by nomadic herders, with about one person per square mile. [2] Mayom lies in the Block 4 oil concession to the south of the Kaikang oilfield. [3]
During the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005) Paulino Matiep Nhial became an Anyanya II leader in the Western Upper Nile (now Unity) state, supported by the Sudan Government against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). [4] Based in the garrison town of Mayom, Paulino held a strategic position, preventing SPLA from Bahr el Ghazal to the west from attacking the oilfields. In September 1988 Riek Machar's SPLA forces captured Mayom. [5] In cooperation with army officer Omar al Bashir (soon to lead a coup and become President of Sudan) Paulino recaptured Mayom from the SPLA early in 1989. [4] A report on refugees fleeing northward from Mayom and other communities in April 1993 described how they were robbed on their few belongings by Arab militias. One man was killed from trying to keep his remaining money, about US$200. [6]
Mayom was the base for the South Sudan Unity Army (SSUA) that Matiep formed early in 1998, incorporating his former Anyanya II and South Sudan Defense Force (SSDN) Bul Nuer forces. The SSUA was supported by the Government of Sudan. [7] In September 1999 commander Peter Gadet Yak of the SSDN mutinied, going over to the SPLA, and on 29 September shelled Mayom, causing further flight of civilians to Block 5A in the east of the state. [8] A report from 2000 described Mayom as "a decimated village within the Talisman oil concession" and said that the government of Sudan was no longer allowing humanitarian aid flights to land. [9]
On 11 April 2011 Major General Peter Gadet Yak, formerly of the SPLA and now of the "South Sudan Liberation Army", published the "Mayom Declaration". He denounced government by the "current corrupt gangs in Juba" and called for the government of Southern Sudan to be replaced by a national broad-base transitional government. [10]
On 29 December 2013, Mayom was seized by Nuer White Army militiamen, and the South Sudanese government, led by president Salva Kiir, is currently trying to take back the town.
SSPM/A attacked Mayom on 22 July 2022. They killed the county commissioner, Chuol Gatluak Manime, and his bodyguards and burned the commissioner’s office. Later, they withdrew from the town to the nearby villages. [11] [12]
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.
Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon is a South Sudanese politician who is serving as the First Vice President of South Sudan.
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Peter Gatdet Yak or Peter Gadet was a Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) general who became the leader of the South Sudan Liberation Army (SSLA), a rebel movement in South Sudan.
Paulino Matip Nhial, or Matiep Nhial, was a military leader and politician in South Sudan.
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Mayom County is an administrative region in Unity of South Sudan to the west of Bentiu. The county headquarters is Mayom town.
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