SUMMARY

The attacks on the civilians by the SSDF followed upon the split between SPLM/A led by John Garang and the SPLM/A (Nasir) led by Riek Machar. The SPLM/A (Nasir) was later renamed South Sudan Defence Force, SSDF). One important element in this split between these two factions was ethnicity. Riek Machar is a Nuer and John Garang a Dinka. Nuer is the second-largest ethnic tribe in Southern Sudan only outnumbered by the Dinka tribe. The two factions fought each other in different types of clashes but they were also involved in attacks on civilians. SSDF often stated that the fighting against Garang had not anything to do with ethnicity but still they attacked Dinka villages several times. In these attacks women, children and men were indiscriminately killed. Eyewitnesses have reported that even people to old to walk, small children and leprosy patients was killed.

In addition to this looting, as for example stealing of cattle, was outspread. The attackers often also picked the women that they found the most beautiful and captured them to follow them and if they refused they were killed. After the attacks were finished the village that had been attacked was often burned to the ground. The worst massacre conducted by the SPLM/A faction led by Riek Machar (SSDF) happened at the end of 1991 and took place the Bor Area of Upper Nile. This massacre is usually referred to as the “Bor Massacre” and in this attack Amnesty has reported that at least 2000 civilians were killed. Eyewitnesses have stated that the killers went from hut to hut, slaughtering all who tried to run before them and those who could not run fast enough were crammed into the huts and set on fire.

These attacks against civilians as well as the fighting between the different SPLM/A factions also led to widespread starvation one reason for this was that the attackers cut down crops and destroyed possibilities to get food in different ways. A vast majority of the attacks on civilians by the SSDF took place in the Upper Nile state.

SSDF first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 1991, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in November that year when hundreds of civilians were killed in Jonglei state.