Inter-ethnic Fighting in Jonglei in March and April 2009

Jonglei is Southern Sudan’s largest state, and among its least accessible, with vast swamplands and a lack of infrastructure. The state is home to several ethnic groups, including the Bor Dinka, the Lou Nuer, and Murle who populate adjacent territories. These groups have long been locked in conflict over serious cattle-raiding and other crimes for decades.

From March 5 to 12, 2009, thousands of armed members of the Lou Nuer ethnic group attacked 17 Murle settlements in Pibor county, killing 453 men, women, and children and abducting more than 120 women and children, according to UN and local authorities. On April 18 hundreds of armed members of the Murle ethnic group counter-attacked 13 settlements in Akobo county, burning villages, killing more than 250 people, and abducting more than 30 children.[6] Together, the attacks caused an estimated 26,000 civilians to flee their homes to Pibor and Akobo towns. Most of the civilians still remain displaced and revenge attacks and cattle-raiding between the two communities continues.[7]

Attack on Pibor County, March 5-12

Starting on March 5 thousands of armed Lou Nuer civilians from Akobo, Wuror, and Nyirol counties launched a series of attacks on 17 Murle settlements in Pibor county.[8] Lou Nuer youth leaders told Human Rights Watch that they coordinated the attacks communicating by word of mouth with others in their age sets.[9] Other participants, including cattle-keepers and the elderly, told Human Rights Watch they decided to join in the attack when they heard the youth were planning it.[10]

On the date planned for the attack, Lou Nuer community members gathered at agreed locations in each county and formed up in lines of attack according to family or sub-clan. A 26-year-old man from Nyirol county told Human Rights Watch that 300 attackers gathered at one location, forming seven lines, while a 50-year-old man from Wuror county told Human Rights Watch “millions” from all three counties convened at the gathering point he went to.

The attackers then proceeded in the direction of Likwongole, stealing cattle and clashing with Murle civilians in settlements along the way.[11] The Lou Nuer attackers used spears and automatic weapons including AK-47s, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades, which have only recently begun to feature in intercommunal fighting.[12] On March 8 a group of the attackers reached the town of Likwongole, where they looted livestock and destroyed property including the hospital, shops, payam administration offices,[13] and NGO offices.

The attackers also abducted approximately 120 Murle women and children, many of whom were located by local authorities but have yet to be returned.[14] The abduction of children has long been associated with the Murle ethnic group, but other ethnic groups also employ the practice in Jonglei.[15] According to witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Murle residents took up arms to defend the town against the attackers and clashed with the attackers at a water point and in town.[16]

A delegation of UN and local officials that visited the attack site after the attack in mid-March found 42 dead bodies on the ground in and around Likwongole town.[17] The bodies included men in police and military uniforms, prompting some Murle leaders to claim that Lou Nuer members of the SPLA participated in the conflict.[18]

A GoSS fact-finding committee composed of 36 regional and Jonglei state officials visited Pibor county following the attack and found that 453 Murle civilians had been killed, the majority in small remote settlements that are not accessible by road, while 6,000 civilians were displaced to Pibor town.[19]

In addition, Jonglei state authorities estimated that an additional 240 Lou Nuer attackers died, many from spear wounds, thirst, or fatigue on the three-day walk from their villages to attack Pibor county.[20] The casualty figures in the attacks have not been independently confirmed by the United Nations, in large part because of the difficulty in accessing these remote areas.

Motivations for the Pibor Attack

According to Lou Nuer participants in the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the primary motivation for the attack on Pibor was revenge for Murle attacks in late January 2009 in which armed Murle men killed scores of Lou Nuer civilians, abducted children, and looted thousands of cattle in attacks on villages in Akobo county.[21] Lou Nuer leaders in Jonglei and Juba explained that those attacks had violated assurances made by Murle leader Sultan Ismail Kony (who serves as a presidential adviser on peace and security in the GoSS) in December 2008 that Murle would no longer attack Lou Nuer villages.[22]

“Our cattle were raided by Murle who killed our children and women and abducted our children. We were fed up. Even though my hair is white I attacked them back,” explained one man from Wuror county detained in Bor with 39 others.[23] The sole female Lou Nuer participant in the Pibor attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said that she joined in the attack because Murle had killed or abducted her husband and children and took her durra [grain] and, “I have no more reason to live.”

The attacks are not the first examples of armed communities targeting women and children in revenge for past crimes, but their scale and severity shocked many.[24] As one long-term Jonglei observer said of the fighting, “this is the culmination of continuous irritation. The two sides are hardened and dehumanizing each other.”[25]

A combination of factors, including the legacy of a long civil war, proliferation of small arms, and absence of security or justice institutions in the South help explain the escalation of fighting. Jonglei state, like most of Southern Sudan, remains severely underdeveloped and justice institutions are largely absent outside the capital town of Bor, with too few police to maintain law and order. Many government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch pointed to the proliferation of arms in civilian hands. “There are too many weapons in civilian hands. The tribes are killing themselves,” said one Lou Nuer leader.[26]

Many southerners also blame northern forces for supplying weapons to southern groups in a strategy to destabilize the South and disrupt the CPA.[27] During the two-decade civil war, both the Murle and Lou Nuer communities received support from northern Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF) at different times.[28] The Sudanese government’s support for southern militia groups was part of its notorious “divide and rule” strategy. Although both Lou Nuer and Murle groups have denied receiving external support in the recent attacks, the widespread perception by southerners that the Khartoum government is assisting southern groups to fight among themselves is by itself damaging, breeding mistrust and divisions nationally and within the South.