South Sudan is an east African country that gained independence from Sudan in 2011. Its capital, Juba, began life as a river port on a bend of the White Nile where the water was deep enough for steamer traffic. Salva Kiir has been its first and only president since independence.
A civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and his vice-president Riek Machar erupted in 2013 and cost perhaps 400,000 lives before ending in a fragile truce in 2018. A unity government was formed in 2020 as part of an agreement between Kiir and Machar and their respective ethnic groups, Dinkas and Nuers. Yet Kiir refused to implement key terms, such as properly unifying the army and holding elections. In March 2025 he used clashes between the army and Nuer militias linked to Machar as a pretext to arrest him. In September 2025 Machar was charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity.
Fighting between the army and Machar's forces has since spread. In January 2026 rebels seized territory and towns from the national army and briefly closed in on Bor, the state capital of Jonglei. Violence in Jonglei alone has forced an estimated 280,000 people from their homes. Arrivals at a camp for internal refugees in Bor report brutal attacks on Nuer villages by government troops, including amputations, gunshot wounds, burns from aerial bombing and systematic sexual violence. The army claims it has beaten the rebels back. Machar's deputy, Nathaniel Oyet, says all the opposition wants is a "mediated solution" and a return to the peace deal.
The World Bank estimates the economy may have shrunk by 30% in 2025 alone. Civil war in neighbouring Sudan has curtailed South Sudan's ability to export oil via the Red Sea, though an agreement with Sudan's warring parties in December 2025 enabled some flows to resume. Less oil money to spread around means Kiir's "big tent" approach for managing the unity government is falling down. Foreign-aid cuts have added to the squeeze. The army has struggled to pay soldiers' salaries for more than a year. A notice at the entrance to a government office in Juba warns visitors it cannot provide money for food, medical fees or other necessities.
Kiir is 74 years old. Close observers say he is ill. His dictatorial governing style is growing ever more erratic. His inner circle barely extends beyond his own family. In August 2025 he appointed his daughter as a senior economic adviser, replacing Benjamin Bol Mel, until then his presumed successor. Three months later Bol Mel was put under house arrest. On February 23rd 2026 the finance minister—the country's eighth since 2020—was sacked after just three months in office. In January a man was appointed to an election panel who was later found to have died five years ago.
Kiir can count on support from neighbouring Uganda, which has troops stationed on the outskirts of Juba. Opposition forces are too weak and divided to do more than continue making rural areas ungovernable. Machar's allies are mostly scattered abroad. But plenty of would-be successors are in the wings. "The successor will be decided by whoever hears about Kiir's death first," a senior politician has said.
About 85% of South Sudan's population is offline. The telecoms market has long been dominated by MTN, the South African operator, which claimed more than 60% of the market by the end of 2024. Digitel, a home-grown telecoms provider launched in Juba in 2021, introduced the country's first 5G service in 2024.
Few roads were ever built in what was previously southern Sudan, making inland waterways the main transport arteries. At their peak in the 1970s, 250,000 passengers a year travelled the river, with cargo tows and passenger ferries plying the route as far north as Kosti, in what is now Sudan. Trade declined during the independence war, when guerrillas attacked state-owned steamers carrying northern troops. After independence, Sudan closed its border and river trade ceased.
Today trade on the river moves on small barges and crab boats. Most of the country's few paved roads are impassable in the rainy season. A long-awaited expansion of Juba's port, funded by a $13.5m grant from Japan, began in 2024. The World Bank is considering funding a plan to dredge the Nile between Juba and Bor, some 150km to the north. The Japanese contractors expanding the port evacuated after fighting resumed in 2025.
Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.