SUMMARY

The war in the Southern Sudan involved many different pro-governmental militias. Even though they all were fighting for the Government there were severe tensions both between different militias and between different factions within the militias. These tensions had different origins, some of them were due to different opinions about how the rebels should be dealt with others are due to ethnic differences. Two of these militias were the Southern Sudan Defence Force (SSDF) and Popular Defence Forces (PDF), which were more affiliated to Northern Sudan but were also active in the South at the moment. Both of these militias were present in Juba, the largest city of Southern Sudan](/#/country/625) in November 2002. At this time disagreements about how independent from the Government, this militias should be led to tensions between the SSDF and PDF. Officers of the PDF thought the Nuer faction of the SSDF was acting too independently from the central command. For this reason they launched an attempt to overtake the leadership of the Nuer part of SSDF. This challenge led to clashes between the two different militias.

The non-state conflict between PDF and SSDF is first included in UCDP data in 2002. In November that year, clashes between the two groups resulted in at least 25 battle-related deaths.