According to official reports from both sides, fighting broke out between the long-ago armies of Uganda and the neighboring South Sudan, which are both long-time allies.
Thousands of civilians have since been displaced in affected areas as people fled to safety amid the rare outbreak of violence.
A gunfight broke out on Monday as South Sudan, one of the youngest nations in the world, resumed fighting due to a government fracturing that has prompted fighting between South Sudanese troops and a rebel-armed group.
By deploying troops to support Kiir’s forces, Uganda has played a key role in containing that issue. However, the latest conflict between the two countries ‘ armies is raising questions regarding the state of that alliance.
What has occurred?
There are conflicting accounts of the events that began at about 4: 25pm local time (13: 25 GMT) on Monday, making it hard to pinpoint which side struck first.
Although the two parties acknowledge that the location of the fighting is their own, each party asserts that the location is unique.
Major-General Felix Kulayigye, a spokesman for the Ugandan military, claimed that fighting broke out when West Nile state soldiers entered Ugandan territory and set up camp there. The South Sudanese soldiers refused to leave after being told to do so, Kulayigye said, resulting in the Ugandan side having “to apply force”.
According to Kulayigye, a Ugandan soldier was killed in the skirmish that followed, and the Ugandan side then retaliated and opened fire, killing three South Sudanese soldiers.
However, Major-General Lul Ruai Koang, a spokesman for the South Sudanese military, reported earlier on Tuesday that the “two sisterly republics” had engaged in combat on the South Sudanese side in Central Equatoria’s Kajo Keji County. Both sides suffered casualties, he said, without giving more details.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Kajo-Keji County’s Wani Jackson Mule added that Ugandan forces had launched a “surprise attack” on South Sudanese territory to support this claim. Five South Sudanese officers’ bodies were reportedly counted by local authorities, according to Mulle.
Kajo-Keji County army commander Brigadier General Henry Buri, in the same statement as Mule, said the Ugandan forces had been “heavily armed with tanks and artillery”, and that they had targeted a joint security force unit stationed to protect civilians, who are often attacked by criminal groups in the area. Two South Sudanese soldiers, two police officers, and one prison officer were among the deceased men, according to the army general.
Residents who spoke to the media claimed that the fighting had affected border villages and that panic was eerily present when people fled the area and loaded their belongings quickly onto their backs. Children were lost in the chaos. As local priests supervised the removal and transportation of remains, photos of crowds gathered on social media.
What is the border conflict about?
Although there have been few such instances of conflict between Uganda and South Sudan, their previous clashes have been minor. The fighting frequently features tension and violence, just like the Monday clash. However, heavy artillery fighting, which occurred on Monday, is rare.
The border disputes date back to the delimitations made during the British colonial period between Uganda and Sudan, which South Sudan was once a part of. The two nations have failed to come to terms on border points despite establishing a joint demarcation committee (unknown when).
In November 2010, just months before an anticipated South Sudanese referendum on independence from Sudan, clashes erupted after the Ugandan government accused the Sudanese army of attacking Dengolo village in the West Nile district of Moyo on the Ugandan side in multiple raids, and of arresting Ugandan villagers who were accused of crossing the border to cut down timber.
A representative of the South Sudanese army refuted the allegations and suggested the forestry commission was responsible for the attack. A few days later, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and South Sudan’s Kiir met and promised to work through the border dispute, but that was a foregone conclusion.
Little was reported on the matter for several years after that, but in October 2020, two Ugandan soldiers and two South Sudanese soldiers were killed when the two sides attacked each other in Pogee, Magwi County of South Sudan, which connects to Gulu district of northern Uganda. Territories in the region are at odds with. Three South Sudanese people were reported dead, according to some reports. Each side blamed the other for starting the fight.
The Ugandan parliament urged the government to speed up the demarcation process in September 2024, noting that in parts of rural Uganda, insufficient clarity was preventing Ugandan forces from successfully pursuing criminal cattle rustling organizations operating in the border region.
The nations have pledged to form a new joint committee to investigate the clashes following the most recent uprising this week, according to South Sudan’s military spokesman General Koang in a statement on Tuesday. The committee will also investigate any recurring issues along the border in a bid to resolve them, the statement read.
Why does Uganda support President Kiir of South Sudan militarily?
Uganda’s Museveni has been a staunch ally of South Sudan’s independence leader, Kiir, and his Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party for many years.
Following allegations of collusion between former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that was established in Uganda but regularly attacks both Ugandan and South Sudanese locations as part of its efforts to overthrow the Ugandan government, Museveni backed South Sudan’s liberation struggle.
In January 2011, South Sudan was granted independence. In 2013, Uganda sent troops to support Kiir after a civil war broke out in the new country.
Before and after independence, Riek Machar, Kiir’s longtime rival, and the two parties’ allies, had engaged in conflict over allegations that Machar planned a coup.
The tensions were also exacerbated by ethnic differences between the two (Makar is Nuer and Kiir is Dinka). Machar fled the capital, Juba, to form his own Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO).
Before coming to a peace agreement in August 2018, the SPLM and SPLM-IO fought for five years. In the war, 400 000 people were killed, or so. Uganda deployed troops to fight alongside Kiir’s SPLM, while the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNMISS), which was in place following independence, worked to protect civilians.
However, a power-sharing agreement that the government claims is supported by Machar has been broken, and fighting has erupted between South Sudanese forces and the White Army, an armed group in Nasir County, northeast of the nation.
As fears of a new civil war grew, Uganda once more deployed special forces to fight alongside Kiir’s forces in March. Kiir ordered Machar to be placed under house arrest and also detained several of his allies in the government.
Are there concerns about South Sudan’s influence from Uganda?
Some South Sudanese who support Vice President Machar, who is still under house arrest, are opposed to Uganda’s deployment of troops in the country, and say Kampala is overreaching.
Some South Sudanese have taken to Facebook to criticize the army for not condemning alleged territorial violations committed by Ugandan soldiers and mock the spokesman Koang for calling the countries “sisterly.”
One poster wrote, “I wish the escalation would continue.” “The reason why South Sudan is not peaceful is because of Uganda’s interference in our country’s affairs”.
What did South Sudan anticipate when they subsided with Uganda’s cheap sale of their sovereignty? Added a second commenter.
Since joining forces to fight the rebel White Army, South Sudanese forces and the Ugandan Army have been accused by Machar and local authorities in Nasir State of using chemical weapons, namely barrel bombs containing a flammable liquid that they say has burned and killed civilians. The UN mission’s head, Nicholas Haysom, confirmed that the bombs had been used in airstrikes. Uganda has, however, refuted these claims. The South Sudan army has not commented.
The White Army and other Machar-area forces have been accused of also attempting to kill civilians. Since March, at least 100, 000 people have fled northeastern South Sudan and died.
