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.
In 2010, Dennis Blair, the United States Director of National Intelligence, issued a warning that "over the next five years,...a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan." In April 2017, Priti Patel, the Secretary of the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, declared the violence in South Sudan as genocide.
Background
Nomadic raiding
Those from the Murle and the Lou Nuer are largely nomadic cattle herders. Cattle are used as food and are used as a store of wealth. It takes 20 cows to buy a bride if a young man hopes to marry, which encourages cattle raiding. Violence between the two groups goes back generations, exacerbated by tensions over land and water. The attacks often target an entire village, burning them in their round thatched huts. Militias frequently abduct children during cattle raids, who are then raised as their own. This is seen as a method, notably among the Murle, to increase the numbers of the small minority group. In past generations, attacks used machetes and sticks. However, after decades of civil war, the region is awash with guns, and young men are now armed with high-powered weapons. In 2017, local organizations said that more than 5,000 people were killed since 2011 in cattle raids in South Sudan.
Sudan People's Liberation Army
The governing party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), and the army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), have been accused of being dominated by the Dinka. Many refer to the dominance of Dinkas as the "Dinkocracy". A Dinka lobbying group known as the "Jieng Council of Elders" is often accused of being behind hardline SPLM policies. While the army used to attract men from across tribes, during the South Sudanese Civil War, the SPLA had largely become a militia of soldiers from the Dinka stronghold of Bahr el Ghazal, home region of President Kiir and the Chief of Staff, and the army was often referred to within the country as "the Dinka army". Much of the worst atrocities committed were blamed on a group known as "Mathiang Anyoor" (Brown caterpillar) or "Dot Ke Beny" (Rescue the President), a militia of Dinkas formed to protect Kiir and Paul Malong Awan, while the SPLA claim that it is just another battalion.
South Sudan Democratic Movement
The South Sudan Democratic Movement (SSDM) is a rebel group founded in 2010 by George Athor after he lost a contested election. The group also incorporates and supports other factions as part of a broad coalition of those who complain of neglect by the Dinka dominated SPLA. This notably includes those composed of ethnic minorities such as the Murle people who lead the Cobra faction and the Shilluk people who lead the Upper Nile Faction. In a strategy of co-option known as "big tent", the government often buys off community militia and pardons its leaders. Others call the use of rebellion to receive public office as "bad culture" and an incentive to rebel.
Murle-Nuer fighting
Uror massacre (2011) On 18 August 2011, an attack in Uror County, northern Jonglei was reportedly launched by Murle tribesmen after armed groups infiltrated into the Peiri and Pulchuol Districts (Payams) at about 5 a.m. The attack is believed to have been a revenge operation against the Lou Nuer tribe after an attack on the Murle the previous June in Pibor County. At least 640 people were killed and the attackers burned down over 3,400 houses and the hospital run by Médecins Sans Frontières. An initial estimate showed that 38,000 heads of cattle were stolen and 208 children were kidnapped.
Pibor massacre (2011–2012)