Western Bahr el Ghazal is a state in South Sudan. It has an area of 93,900 km2 (36,255 sq mi) and is the least populous state in South Sudan, according to the controversial Sudanese census conducted in 2008. It is part of the Bahr el Ghazal region. Its capital is Wau. The state shared international borders with Sudan to the north and the Central African Republic to the west. The portion now occupied by Raga County is the southern part of the historical region known as "Dar Fertit".
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.
Salva Kiir Mayardit, also known as Salva Kiir, is a South Sudanese politician who has been President of South Sudan since its independence on July 9, 2011. Prior to independence, he was 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 (SPLA) in 2005, following the death of John Garang.
Wau is a city in northwestern South Sudan, on the western bank of the Jur River, that serves as capital for Western Bahr el Ghazal. It lies approximately 650 kilometres (400 mi) northwest of the capital Juba. A culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse urban center and trading hub, Wau is also the former headquarters of Western Bahr el Ghazal.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Deim Zubeir, from the Arabic ديم الزبير ["Daim az-Zubayr"], commonly translated as the "Camp of Zubeir", is the historically established but highly controversial name of Uyujuku town in the Western Bahr el Ghazal of the Republic of South Sudan, located in the Western Bahr El Ghazal part of the country, some 70 km from the border with the Central African Republic (CAR), near the Biri tributary of the River Chel.
Throughout its history, Darfur has been the home to several cultures and kingdoms, like the mythical Tora or the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the seventeenth century, with the foundation of the Fur Sultanate by the Keira dynasty. In 1875, the Anglo-Egyptian Co-dominion in Khartoum ended the dynasty. The British allowed Darfur a measure of autonomy until formal annexation in 1916. However, the region remained underdeveloped through the period of colonial rule and after independence in 1956. The majority of national resources were directed toward the riverine Arabs clustered along the Nile near Khartoum. This pattern of structural inequality and overly underdevelopment resulted in increasing restiveness among Darfuris. The influence of regional geopolitics and war by proxy, coupled with economic hardship and environmental degradation, from soon after independence led to sporadic armed resistance from the mid-1980s. The continued violence culminated in an armed resistance movement around 2003.
Bahr al-Arab is a river which flows approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) through the southwest of Sudan and marks part of its international border with South Sudan. It is part of the Nile river system, being a tributary of Bahr el Ghazal, which is a tributary of the White Nile.
The Abyei Area is an area of 10,546 km2 or 4,072 sq mi on the border between South Sudan and the Sudan that has been accorded "special administrative status" by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. The capital of the Abyei Area is Abyei Town. Under the terms of the Abyei Protocol, the Abyei Area was considered, on an interim basis, to be simultaneously part of both the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of the Sudan, effectively a condominium.
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.
The 2009 Sobat River ambush was a battle between Jikany Nuer tribesmen and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) which was escorting a United Nations (UN) aid convoy on 12 June 2009.
The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile is an armed conflict in the Sudanese southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile between the Sudanese Army (SAF) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a northern affiliate of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in South Sudan. After some years of relative calm following the 2005 agreement which ended the second Sudanese civil war between the Sudanese government and SPLM rebels, fighting broke out again in the lead-up to South Sudan independence on 9 July 2011, starting in South Kordofan on 5 June and spreading to the neighboring Blue Nile state in September. SPLM-N, splitting from newly independent SPLM, took up arms against the inclusion of the two southern states in Sudan with no popular consultation and against the lack of democratic elections. The conflict is intertwined with the War in Darfur, since in November 2011 SPLM-N established a loose alliance with Darfuri rebels, called Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).
The history of South Sudan comprises the history of the territory of present-day South Sudan and the peoples inhabiting the region.
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 Dinkas, 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 has been described by The Economist as the "worst massacre" of the civil war.
Armed clashes took in Wau State from late June 2016 to January 2019 between the Dinka-dominated Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and local opposition forces, consisting of tribal Fertit militias as well as fighters claiming allegiance to Riek Machar. It is unclear to what extent these rebels were actually part of the SPLM-IO or acting independently while using the SPLM-IO's name. The clashes resulted in the arrest of the state's governor, Elias Waya Nyipuoc, widespread death and destruction in the state capital, Wau town, and the displacement of up to 150,000 people.
The Army of Peace was a large alliance of Fertit tribal militias in Western Bahr el Ghazal during the Second Sudanese Civil War. Although initially armed by the Sudanese government in order to fight against South Sudanese separatists, the Army of Peace became especially notorious for massacring Dinka civilians. These mass killings grew so excessive that the group even came into violent conflicts with other pro-government forces. The militia was mostly disbanded in 1988, though a rump faction continued to be active and joined the Popular Defence Forces in 1989, and later the South Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF) in 1997.
The South Sudan Patriotic Army is a South Sudanese rebel militia that takes part in the South Sudanese Civil War and serves as the military wing of Costello Garang Ring's South Sudan Patriotic Movement. Well armed and relatively numerous, the SSPA mostly operates in Northern Bahr el Ghazal and is considered to be one of the most powerful rebel groups in South Sudan.
The 2014 retreat from Western Bahr el Ghazal, also called the long march north, was an unorganized withdrawal by hundreds of Nuer Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) deserters who sought to flee from Bahr el Ghazal to Sudan during the South Sudanese Civil War. After longstanding tensions between SPLA soldiers belonging to the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups escalated on 25 April 2014, leading to a massacre of Nuer soldiers at Mapel in Western Bahr el Ghazal, a large number of Nuer SPLA soldiers deserted to escape ethnic prosecution and loyalist SPLA forces. Though some deserters joined SPLM-IO rebels or surrendered to the government, a large number of them marched northward, joined by other SPLA defectors from Northern Bahr el Ghazal. After covering over 400 kilometres (250 mi), this trek eventually arrived in Sudan on 4 August 2014, where they were disarmed.
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