The massacre in Ngauro on December 29, 2025, was not only a moral outrage, but a direct violation of the supreme law of the land; the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011.
At least 16 civilians were killed in an artisanal gold-mining area in Budi County.
These deaths were not accidental or unforeseeable. They were the predictable outcome of a mining system that operates in open defiance of constitutional duties, statutory obligations, and the doctrine of public trust.
The Constitution is explicit. Article 24 guarantees the right to life and human dignity. Article 25 guarantees personal liberty and security.
When civilians are slaughtered at a mining site because the state failed to regulate, police, or secure that site, the violation is constitutional—not incidental.
The Constitution goes further. Article 169 affirms that land belongs to the people of South Sudan and is held in trust by the government. Article 170(1) declares that natural resources, including minerals, belong to the people and shall be regulated by law. Article 170(4) obligates the state to ensure that natural resource exploitation benefits the people and is conducted transparently and sustainably.
Ngauro revealed the opposite reality. Mining in South Sudan is governed, not by law, but by power, patronage, and protection. Licensing is opaque. Beneficial ownership is concealed. Community consent is bypassed. Security is either absent or informally outsourced to armed actors. This reality violates both the Constitution and the Mining Act, 2012, which requires licensing, oversight, safety standards, and lawful operation of activities.
Under Article 34, citizens have the right to access public information. Yet the public is denied access to mining contracts, license holders, revenue flows, and security arrangements. This secrecy does not exist by accident; it exists to shield beneficiaries.
The beneficiaries of mining in South Sudan are not artisanal miners, host communities, or the National Treasury. They are the ruling elites—powerful political, military, and business figures, who have captured the mining sector and converted public resources into private wealth. This elite capture stands in direct contradiction to constitutional trusteeship.
The Ngauro killings exposed how this system functions. Armed actors linked to criminal networks challenge the state, overwhelm local security, and operate freely in mining zones. Such conditions are possible only where enforcement is selective and protection is political. A state that tolerates this has surrendered its constitutional monopoly over the use of force the very foundation of sovereignty.
Official statements that condemn violence without confronting elite control of mining are legally hollow. Investigations that focus solely on gunmen while ignoring license holders, security commanders, political patrons, and revenue beneficiaries amount to bad faith. Justice that stops at the trigger, but spares the sponsor, is not justice; it is institutionalized impunity.
The international community cannot plead innocence. By financing governance and livelihood programs while avoiding confrontation with elite capture of natural resources, donors have tolerated constitutional erosion. Aid that ignores mining-governance reform, contradicts the principles of accountability and rule of law it claims to promote.
If the Constitution were enforced as supreme law, the response would be immediate and unavoidable.
There would be the publication of all mining licenses and beneficial ownership in compliance with Article 34. The removal of serving political and military elites from mining interests under Article 170 would be effected. There would be the deployment of civilian-controlled security forces to protect life under Articles 24 and 25.
All the actors linked to mining-related violence, regardless of rank, would be prosecuted. Mandatory community consent and benefit-sharing consistent with land and resource provisions would be observed.
Until these measures are implemented, every miner killed is not merely a victim of violence, but a victim of constitutional breach and state-sanctioned illegality.
Ngauro is not a tragedy of poverty or tradition. It is evidence of a republic where the supreme law has been subordinated to elite greed. A state that violates its own Constitution in the management of natural resources has already forfeited its moral and legal authority.
Gold mining should be governed by law. In South Sudan, it is governed by power. And where power replaces law, graves follow.
The writer, Dr Stephen Dhieu Kuach, is a legal scholar, political analyst, and natural-resource governance expert. He previously served as Director of Disability Affairs at the Ministry of Presidential Affairs. He can be reached via email: dr.stephen.dhieu@gmail.com
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