South Sudan reverses course and accepts deportee from U.S.

On Tuesday, South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry reversed an earlier decision and agreed to accept a Congolese national the United States had deported and wrongly identified as a South Sudanese citizen. South Sudanese officials said they made the U-turn to admit Makula Kintu in order to preserve “existing friendly relations.”

When the Trump administration first deported Kintu, South Sudan sent him back to the United States on the grounds that he wasn’t a South Sudanese citizen. In response, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the suspension of all current visas held by South Sudanese passport holders. The restriction also prevents any more South Sudanese citizens from entering the country. Rubio said the move was “due to the failure of South Sudan’s transitional government to accept the return of its repatriated citizens in a timely manner.”

The friction between the countries comes amid reignited fears of another civil war in South Sudan. The United States last month ordered all nonemergency staff to leave the country.

What caused the latest fighting?

Tensions escalated in March between the White Army militia, which is loyal to former rebel leader and current Vice President Riek Machar, and the army controlled by President Salva Kiir. Machar also accused Kiir’s forces of detaining several of his allies. In an escalation, Kiir’s forces placed Machar under house arrest, blaming him for disrupting peace and agitating his forces to rebel against the government.

Who are the warring parties?

Kiir and Machar, who are both in a transitional coalition government, come from South Sudan’s two largest tribes—the Dinka and the Nuer. A power struggle between the men just two years after the country’s independence from neighboring Sudan in 2011 sent South Sudan into a civil war.

More than 400,000 people died before the warring sides signed a peace deal in 2018. The deal required the warring sides to reunify the forces, create a constitution, and prepare the country for elections. But Daniel Akech, a senior analyst on South Sudan at the International Crisis Group, said much of that deal remains unmet. “Six years have been spent in sort of a stagnation for the country, where the leaders were not implementing the agreement,” he said.

What’s fueling the concerns of another war?

The fighting between troops in the Upper Nile state has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing for safety as aerial bombardments target civilian areas. More than two dozen South Sudanese soldiers died after a United Nations rescue helicopter was downed in the state. Last month, the United States also ordered all its non-emergency staff in the country to leave, noting that “weapons are readily available to the population.”

One American missionary in South Sudan told WORLD the violence is far from his location, but he said his team is in “almost daily” communications with partner aid groups to discuss evacuation plans and routes. WORLD agreed to withhold his name and specific location due to concerns about security and his continued work.

Is there a regional element to this conflict?

Neighboring Sudan has also been battling a civil war since April 2023, between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. Akech says arms from the conflict in Sudan have flowed into South Sudan, with some armed groups also crossing the border to join sides in the Sudan war. Both crises have also further complicated a dire humanitarian situation.

By January, more than 1 million people had crossed into South Sudan as the conflict in Sudan continued. The United Nations said many of them are South Sudanese nationals who had previously fled into Sudan when their country faced its own war back in 2013. “This is a disaster because it’s creating a humanitarian emergency for which South Sudan doesn't have any capacity,” Akech said.

Have there been any efforts yet to douse the rising tensions?

The Council of Evangelical Churches of South Sudan called for a probe into the root causes of the conflict and more diplomatic solutions. Several African leaders, including Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga have traveled to South Sudan’s capital city, Juba, to meet with South Sudanese officials. Uganda received backlash for its earlier decision to deploy troops to the country over the rising violence.

African Union mediators alsoarrived in Juba for talks last week. Akech said negotiations need to include more of the armed groups active in other parts of the country, and not just Kiir and Machar. “The armed groups … are not all answerable to the people in Juba,” he explained. “Some of them are actually mobilizing under the flags of their communities. So that is already a group that you cannot really contain.”