Twelve years later, the people of South Sudan still carry the painful memory of the Nuer massacre that began in the late hours of 15 December 2013 in Juba.
In December 2013, in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, thousands—perhaps tens of thousands of Nuer civilians were hunted, identified, separated, and killed. They were murdered not on battlefields, but in their homes, on the streets, in churches, in bushes, and even inside police stations. Their bodies were buried in unmarked graves, burned, or dumped into the Nile River. They were killed not for what they had done, but for who they were—Nuer.
This was not a clash. It was not collateral damage. It was a massacre. It was a door-to-door campaign carried out by government security forces and allied tribal militias. These forces were falsely told that the Nuer were attempting to seize power from the Jieng (Dinka), and that the only way to prevent this was to eliminate Nuer civilians in Juba.
This was not the case. The truth is that Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and Dr. Riek Machar, a Nuer, were engaged in a heated political rivalry that began in late 2012. The crisis worsened in July 2013, when Machar announced his intention to vie for the chairmanship of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). This move infuriated Kiir, who responded by dismissing Dr. Machar as vice president and dissolving the entire cabinet on July 23, 2013. This marked the beginning of Kiir’s increasingly dictatorial rule.
Innocent men, women, and children paid with their lives for a fabricated narrative rooted in ethnic fear and political manipulation.
For survivors, time has not healed the wound. Instead, it has deepened the pain of unanswered questions, unacknowledged crimes, and buried truths. Mothers still remember sons taken at checkpoints and never seen again. Children carry memories no child should ever bear. Families continue to wait for justice that has been promised, postponed, and politically buried.
Meanwhile, the nation has learned to live with silence. That silence is dangerous. President Salva Kiir knows that the blood of the Nuer massacred in Juba is on his hands. For anyone who doubts that Nuer civilians were targeted simply because of their identity, a visit to the United Nations–run Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps across the country offers grim evidence. The overwhelming majority of those living in these camps are Nuer—not by choice, but because of the deliberate and systematic killing of their fathers, mothers, children, brothers, and sisters in Juba in 2013.
South Sudan was born out of immense sacrifice, watered by the blood of its people. Yet, only twenty-nine months after independence, the dream fractured along ethnic lines, and the state turned violently against part of its own population. The December 2013 Nuer massacre did not merely ignite a civil war; it marked a profound moral collapse of the nation.
This anniversary is not about reopening wounds. The wounds were never closed. It is about truth. A nation cannot heal while denying its own history. Peace built on amnesia is not peace; it is merely delayed violence.
President Kiir may continue to deflect reality by obstructing the full implementation of the September 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement, believing that maintaining a grip on power will secure stability. He is wrong. The December 2013 massacre left a deep and lasting wound in the Nuer community. That wound can only begin to heal if he publicly and unconditionally accepts responsibility and commits to genuine, lasting peace.
For the international community, December 2013 remains a test of credibility. The world welcomed South Sudan’s independence with hope and applause in July 2011. When mass atrocities followed, the response was muted, cautious, and quickly fatigued. Reports were written. Statements were issued. Then attention moved on.
The reality is undeniable: the killing of the Nuer people between December 15 and December 31, 2013, in and around Juba constituted ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity, and by any honest definition, genocide. What makes this tragedy even more damning is the unmistakable regional and international complicity in South Sudan’s conflict.
The atrocities committed by Kiir’s regime were, in effect, for sale. Key regional and global actors—those with the power and influence to halt the slaughter of an entire ethnic group—chose silence instead. Whether this silence stemmed from excessive caution, a moral paralysis disguised as “balance,” or consciences drowned in false equivalence remains unclear.
What is clear, however, is that economic and geopolitical interests outweighed human life. By choosing inaction, these actors, including Uganda, became enablers, allowing mass violence to unfold while the world watched. Silence, in this case, was not neutrality—it was complicity at its highest.
But mass graves do not disappear when headlines fade. Justice delayed for twelve years is justice denied. Accountability is not revenge; it is the foundation of reconciliation. Without it, violence becomes precedent, and victims are reduced to statistics.
Remembering the Nuer massacre is not an ethnic act—it is a human one. Acknowledging it does not weaken South Sudan; it strengthens the possibility of a future in which no community lives in fear of the very state meant to protect it.
December must not be reduced to a footnote in history or a taboo in politics. It must be confronted openly, honestly, and courageously. Because a nation that refuses to remember its dead risks losing its soul. Twelve years on, the blood has dried, but the truth still cries out. The December 2013 door-to-door killings of the Nuer were a twisted tribal logic disguised as a campaign against rebellion. Those who were massacred were not rebels. They were helpless, innocent civilians who believed the government was theirs too—and that its security forces would protect them as they would any other citizens.
They were wrong. Instead, they were humiliated, hunted, and inhumanely killed. The massacre was state-led—a horrific theatre of death that transformed innocence into targets and cities into graves—a crime so appalling and deliberate that the world cannot look away without becoming complicit. To deny the December 2013 massacre of the Nuer is to wear disgrace itself as a crown.
The writer is an analyst, a critical writer, and a former editor-in-chief of the South Sudan News Agency. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and focuses on geopolitics, security, and social issues in South Sudan and the broader East African region. He can be reached at duop282@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.