Non-international armed conflict (2013-)
Estimated number persons in need of humanitarian assistance: 8,9 million as of March 2022
Less than three years after gaining its independence in 2011, a civil war erupted in South Sudan in December 2013. Fighting followed an ongoing political power struggle that led the President, Salva Kiir, from the Dinka ethnic group, to remove most of his government, including then Vice-President, Riek Machar, who belonged to the Nuer ethnic group. The root causes of the conflict are linked to previous hostilities in the region, characterized by unresolved political, economic and social antagonism.
Armed clashes escalated between the Government’s national army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) (renamed in 2018 as South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF)), and opposition forces, primarily the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO). The SPLA/SSPDF and SPLA-IO supported Kiir and Machar, respectively.
“By February 2017, famine was declared in parts of Unity State and again in December 2020 in Jonglei State — two of only three famine declarations worldwide in the past twenty years.”
After a failed peace agreement in 2015, Kiir, Machar, and others signed the Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) on 12 September 2018. The Agreement was based on power-sharing and a transitional unity government. While R-ARCSS has facilitated a decrease in large-scale armed violence and helped to alleviate some dimensions of the humanitarian emergency, its implementation has been characterized by a general lack of political will, numerous obstacles, obstruction and delays. The warring parties have “continued to commit serious human rights violations and [to] use methods of warfare that are in contravention of international humanitarian law and the revitalized peace agreement”.
Food insecurity during the conflict
Prior to the outbreak of armed violence, South Sudan was a predominantly food secure country. As a result of the conflict, by May 2014 there was a 115% increase in food insecurity, with more than 3.5 million people in Phase 3 or 4 (emergency) of the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC). The worst-affected States — the Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity — were also the States that saw the most conflict.
By February 2017, famine was declared in parts of Unity State in South Sudan and again in December 2020 in Jonglei State — two of only three famine declarations worldwide in the past twenty years.
Following the UN Security Council’s landmark Resolution 2417 (2018) on 24 May 2018 recalling the intrinsic link between armed conflict and hunger, OCHA sent a confidential white paper to the UN Security Council in July 2018, seeking to focus attention on South Sudan’s unprecedented levels of hunger and food insecurity. In early September 2020, OCHA sought the Council’s attention again, highlighting the rapid deterioration in food security in four countries, including South Sudan.
The following years have continued to be characterised by extremely high levels of food insecurity, driven “by the cumulative effects of the national and localised conflicts”. According to OCHA’s latest Humanitarian Snapshot in March 2022, there were 8.9 million people in need and over 4 million people displaced, including both internally displaced persons and refugees. As of April 2022, 6,83 million people were in IPC Phase 3 or above, of which 2,37 million were in in Phase 4 acute food insecurity. This includes approximately 55,000 people in Fangak, Canal/Pigi and Uror counties of Jonglei State; Pibor Administrative Area; Tambura County of Western Equatoria State; and Leer and Mayendit counties of Unity State.
Evidence of starvation crimes
During the conflict, both government and opposition forces have engaged in various starvation tactics, as documented by several reports of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS) and the UN Security Council Panel of Experts on South Sudan (UNPOE), amongst others.
Conduct of the warring parties was evocative of the Second Sudanese Civil War that ultimately led to South Sudan gaining its independence, in particular the devastating fighting of the 1990s. Fighting was accompanied by violence against civilians, including destruction of houses and small businesses, forced displacement, and comprehensive looting of assets, especially livestock. Crops were burned or stolen, and fear of violence prevented farmers from cultivating crops.
GRC’s Policy Paper on South Sudan (2019), details how in Wau County in Western Bahr al Ghazal, the “military strategy of government forces included violence against civilians, forced displacement (targeted on the basis of ethnicity) and destruction of property and the means of livelihoods.” In October 2020, the CHRSS issued its landmark Starvation Report. The Commission documented starvation-related conduct by the SSPDF, during their attacks on the Fertit and Luo communities in the Western Bahr el Ghazal.
The CHRSS also documented restrictions on humanitarian access, including looting and attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, by opposition forces in Central Equatoria, as well as by other non-state actors. At the same time, government forces restricted humanitarian access in Central Equatoria, especially in areas which they identified as being supportive of the opposition. In its 2021 report, the CHRSS found that government forces (including the SPLA/SSPDF) used starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, by taking actions designed to deny or withhold food or objects indispensable for survival, in order to weaken the population, including by denying all humanitarian access. The report concludes that the government objective was to deprive civilians of essential items and cause them to move away.
Impunity for starvation crimes
In 2016, the Human Rights Council established the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, with a mandate to monitor and report on the human rights situation, to determine and report the facts and circumstances, collect and preserve evidence of, and clarify responsibility for, alleged gross violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes, including sexual and gender-based violence and ethnic violence, with a view to ending impunity and providing accountability and make available such information to all transitional justice mechanisms.
“… pervasive impunity continues to characterise the conflict in South Sudan, as no meaningful domestic, regional or international accountability efforts, including for alleged starvation crimes, have resulted in perpetrators being held to account.”
Chapter V of R-ARCSS provides for the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms, including a Hybrid Court, a Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing (CTRH) and the Compensation and Reparation Authority (CRA), with a view to bring perpetrators to justice and secure reparations for victims. These mechanisms include the creation of a Hybrid Court for South Sudan with the mandate to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for violations of international law and South Sudanese law, including for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and other serious crimes under international law (e.g., SGBV). Critically, the CHRSS Starvation Report recommended the inclusion of starvation as a method of warfare as an explicit war crime in the Hybrid Court’s Draft Statute.
The CHRSS in its February 2021 report stated that “South Sudan has made no concrete progress in establishing any of the transitional justice mechanisms provided for in chapter V of the Agreement to address accountability for conflict-related violations in South Sudan.” While the AU Commission and South Sudanese authorities still have not signed the required Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and agreed upon the Draft Statute of the Hybrid Court as of May 2022, both reaffirmed their commitment and agreed to accelerate a review of a draft MoU in December 2021. Nevertheless, there does not appear to be sufficient political will, on either the domestic or regional plane, to complete the process and establish the Hybrid Court. In April 2022, the South Sudanese government announced that it launched public consultations to establish the CTRH. However, the move has been met with scepticism, with the CHRSS noting that “[w]ithout progress on other measures, the decision by the Government to establish the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing is selective and contrary to the spirit and vision of chapter V [R-ARCSS], the implementation of which requires political will, national ownership and the full participation of all stakeholders.”
The UNSC established the South Sudan Sanctions Committee under UNSC Resolution 2206 (2015), assisted by the UNPOE. In its 2017 report, the UNPOE noted that it had provided evidence of individuals’ complicity in actions and policies in violation of IHL, “‘including those responsible for the conditions that have resulted in the unprecedented humanitarian crisis, including famine.” In 2018, the UNSC adopted Resolution 2428 on South Sudan, designating General Paul Malong for sanction for ordering SPLA units to prevent the transport of humanitarian supplies across the Nile, where tens of thousands of civilians were severely food insecure.
Despite the UNSC designation, pervasive impunity continues to characterise the conflict in South Sudan, as no meaningful domestic, regional, or international accountability efforts, including for alleged starvation crimes, have resulted in perpetrators held to account.
Additional resources:
Read more on the use of starvation by warring parties in South Sudan in GRC’s Policy Paper on Accountability for Starvation Crimes: South Sudan.
UNSC resolutions addressing the humanitarian situation in South Sudan: UNSC 2057 (2012); UNSC 2155 (2014); UNSC 2187 (2014); UNSC 2206 (2015); UNSC 2241 (2015); UNSC 2290 (2016); UNSC 2304 (2016); UNSC 2327 (2016); UNSC 2406 (2018).
