Two prominent activists in South Sudan—Augustino Ting Mayai of the local Sudd Institute [5] and Kuel Aguer Kuel, former governor of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State—were arrested [6] Aug. 2 for calling for a peaceful uprising to end the country's state of "political bankruptcy." They were part of a coalition of civil society groups [7] that declared South Sudan has "had enough [8]" of a decade of failed leadership, marked by civil war and widespread hunger. The coalition called for the resignation of both President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, arch-rivals now uneasy bedfellows in a unity government.
Underlining the growing instability, a power struggle has broken out within Machar's Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in Opposition (SPLM-IO [10]). The SPLM-10 chief of staff, Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual, announced Machar's ousting [11] on Aug. 3, claiming he no longer represented the interests of the movement. Machar, a veteran warlord, said he wasn't budging [12]. A 2018 peace agreement, ending a five-year civil war that killed 400,000 people, is increasingly frayed [13]. A new transitional parliament was finally sworn in [14] Aug. 4, but there's been little progress on a unified national army, and disillusionment runs deep [15]. As insecurity worsens in the countryside, with aid workers ambushed and killed [16], UN peacekeepers have begun escorting humanitarian convoys [17].
From The New Humanitarian [18], Aug. 6