As civil war reignites in South Sudan, so too does a battle over aid

4 April 2026

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.

By Joshua Craze and Joseph Falzetta

One morning in February, a team from the World Food Programme (WFP) arrived in the village of Mogok, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State. For the starving residents, it was a long-awaited visit.

The country’s peace agreement had fallen apart just over a year earlier, and the government had cut off opposition-held Mogok from aid. Supplies had run low and children had grown visibly thinner. “There is no sorghum here, no maize. Only fish and the roots of river plants,” one villager said.

In the weeks before the visit, Mogok’s inhabitants had repeatedly asked when WFP would come. After aid workers finally arrived, villagers offered them a precious goat.

That same morning, 20 kilometres south of Mogok, in the village of Pankor, expectations of an aid delivery were also running high. The situation in Pankor was just as dire, and the arrival of a government-aligned militia – following news of aid workers appearing nearby – spurred optimism.

Only days earlier, the local county commissioner, who hails from Pankor, had told community members that aid would soon arrive. “The UN agencies will come and bring for you everything,” he said.

Using a loudspeaker, the militia, known as the Agwelek, invited Pankor’s residents to gather in a hut to be registered for food aid. After the villagers assembled, fighters tied some of them up, and then opened fire. At least 22 were executed, according to two eyewitnesses.

Photos shared on social media after the massacre convey the consequences. In one, a rail-thin young man, his arms bound behind his back, lies face-first in the ashes of a cooking fire. In another, three women and two children lie together on the ground of the hut where they had gathered to register.

The events in Mogok and Pankor point to a wider pattern: Aid in South Sudan’s civil war is entangled in the conflict’s complex dynamics. From humanitarians being denied access to areas where people are starving, to the use of aid workers as bait for a massacre, assistance is being weaponised.

None of this should come as a surprise: Aid has long been central to warfare in the Sudans, and there are few countries that have been as closely studied for how conflict actors manipulate assistance. Yet history is now repeating itself with deadly consequences.

As conflict spreads, the South Sudanese government, which determines whether humanitarians can access different parts of the country, is pressuring organisations to withdraw from rebel-held areas and profiting from relief operations. The SPLM/A-IO, the country’s main rebel faction, is also exploiting aid where it can.

In recent months, the battle over humanitarianism has seen millions of dollars’ worth of food and medicine intended for civilians stolen or diverted by fighters, while dozens of NGO-run health facilities have been looted or destroyed, including by government airstrikes.

Coupled with the decimation of humanitarian budgets, aid is now reaching fewer and fewer people in South Sudan, even as the situation grows ever more dire. Ten million people – the majority of the population – are currently in need of assistance, according to the UN’s humanitarian coordination arm (OCHA), and extreme levels of hunger and malnutrition have spread through areas affected by fighting.

Starving the needy

The current civil war began in March 2025, when South Sudanese President Salva Kiir arrested one of his vice-presidents – the leader of the SPLM/A-IO, Riek Machar – for his alleged role in orchestrating an attack on a military barracks in Upper Nile State. The two men had formed a unity government in 2020 after a civil war between their forces cost over 400,000 lives.

The following month, a government memo divided up the parts of the country populated by the Nuer (South Sudan’s second-largest ethnic group and a major component of the SPLM/A-IO) into “hostile” and “friendly” counties.

What followed was a campaign of aerial bombardment that primarily targeted “hostile” counties, destroying medical facilities, markets, and homes, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

In December, after the government attempted to use political appointments to divide Nuer groups loyal to the opposition, the rebels overran a series of military garrisons in Jonglei. The following month, the government responded by launching a counteroffensive dubbed “Operation Enduring Peace”.

During the lead-up to the operation, the Agwelek’s leader, Johnson Olonyi, who is also a general in the South Sudanese army (the SSPDF), told his troops: “Do not spare an elderly, don’t spare a chicken, don’t spare a house or anything.” Government spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny called Olonyi’s comments “a slip of the tongue” that were not indicative of government policy.

Yet at least some of Olonyi’s instructions were carried out. In the town of Akobo, an opposition stronghold where some of Jonglei’s residents had taken refuge, civilians described witnessing fighters loyal to Kiir’s regime razing villages, rounding up and killing their inhabitants, and deliberately destroying water sources.

The South Sudanese army is now entrenched in most of the country’s major towns, while opposition forces hold sway over large swathes of the countryside. Controlling humanitarian resources and denying access to hungry populations are once again proving powerful tools of war.

The government holds the upper hand in wielding these tools.

In recent months, it has repeatedly denied humanitarian access to rebel-held areas, while directing aid organisations to relocate their operations into government-controlled territory, aid workers, UN officials, and diplomats told The New Humanitarian.

This has caused a particularly acute crisis in a roughly 40-kilometre stretch of opposition-held territory in the southeast of Nasir County, in Upper Nile – a key battleground in the current conflict – where international aid organisations have been unable to deliver food aid for over a year.

Government airstrikes and heavy fighting in Nasir have displaced tens of thousands of people into informal sites along the Sobat River. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-supported analysis body, warned in November that the county was at risk of famine, including more than 16,000 people at imminent risk of starvation.

An invitation to a massacre

Parts of northern Jonglei have also been placed under government siege.

Last August, humanitarian barges were held for over a week on the White Nile, preventing them from continuing their mission and delivering food to opposition-held areas. After negotiations, some places received food, but access to other areas continued to be blocked.

In January of this year, as the government announced its counteroffensive, it ordered all aid groups to vacate three opposition-held counties in northern Jonglei, an area roughly the size of Belgium.

In March, the medical group Médecins Sans Frontières said the government was preventing their staff from reaching the village of Nyatim, where, they said, dozens of civilians displaced by the fighting had starved to death or died from disease.

Humanitarian actors say their ability to push back and demand full access is limited because they are dependent on government permissions and fear losing their ability to operate in the country.

But that fear offers scant comfort in places like Pankor, where hunger caused by government denial of humanitarian aid meant villagers were desperate and expectant when the Agwelek turned up in February.

The militia had what they felt was unfinished business with the Gawaar Nuer, a section of the Nuer ethnic group that lives in Pankor.

In 2022, the Agwelek had successfully taken crucial settlements along the White Nile to the north. The Gawaar Nuer, fearing they would be denied humanitarian access – and lucrative fees from checkpoints stippled along the river – mobilised for a counterattack. Community leaders told young Gawaar that they were attacking the government so the community could access aid, in what was a more bellicose version of the daily struggles against the government for humanitarian access fought by aid workers in Juba.

Their counterattack, led by the charismatic Nuer prophet Makuach Tut, rampaged through the west bank of the White Nile into areas inhabited by Shilluk communities, from which the Agwelek draw support. There, Tut’s men killed and looted.

For the 30 or so Agwelek who travelled to Pankor on the morning of 21 February, the massacre was revenge for what had happened in 2022. The humanitarians were used once again, this time as a lure.

Masters of the craft

Humanitarian aid has long been central to waging war in the Sudans. During the second Sudanese civil war (1983-2005), fought between the government in Khartoum and the southern rebels (the SPLM/A) who would go on to lead an independent South Sudan, both parties diverted food aid to their troops and restricted access to enemy-held areas.

During the first South Sudanese civil war (2013–2018), the now-governing SPLM/A, led by Kiir, took up the same wartime playbook. In southern Unity State, for example, it declared certain areas “safe zones” and encouraged humanitarians to distribute aid there. Civilians flocked to these areas, where the government could control them and divert food aid to soldiers. The rest of southern Unity was declared hostile. Government-backed militias repeatedly rampaged through the region, razing villages, looting cattle, and raping women.

As during South Sudan’s first civil war, access to opposition areas has not been entirely cut off during the current conflict.

Some aid groups have managed to negotiate directly with local county commissioners and militia leaders, while permits from Juba have also ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the conflict.

Late last year, WFP airdropped food for approximately 36,000 people in some areas of Nasir, according to an agency spokesperson, even as its efforts to access sites along the Sobat River remained stalled.

Yet the granting of humanitarian aid can also be part of the war effort, with access often allowed only once the government has captured a place.

In January, the government ordered aid groups and peacekeepers out of opposition-held Akobo, then invited them back once the town was captured by government forces. In April, when the town was recaptured by the opposition, it barred humanitarian flights again.

In May 2025, the government hired BAR Aviation, an Israeli-Ugandan company with close ties to the Ugandan military, which then subcontracted the US firm Fogbow to conduct food airdrops to Nasir town. The town had been recently recaptured by the government and was being used as a base to launch military operations toward opposition encampments near the Ethiopian border. In an interview at the time, the humanitarian affairs minister, Albino Atak, said the airdrops were intended to bring the civilian population back to town.

On the other hand, opposition officials, wary of civilians moving into government areas, told people – without evidence – that the food being dropped in Nasir had been poisoned.

In contested counties across the country, similar tactics are being used to control population flows and the humanitarian resources they often bring. “The civilians bring the aid workers,” explained one South Sudanese humanitarian based in Upper Nile, “and the aid workers bring everything else.”

Hauled off by soldiers

While humanitarian aid has been denied to some of the country’s most needy, belligerent forces have helped themselves.

Last September, a government-allied militia looted a WFP barge in the town of New Fangak, in Jonglei. Asked about the incident, one of the generals who issued the order indicated that his soldiers were also hungry.

The government later made a placatory gesture and gave WFP food aid roughly equivalent to what was stolen, though this did not include the non-food items pillaged, nor did it help get the food to the populations for which it was originally intended.

Earlier this year, a 12-barge WFP convoy – worth approximately $2 million – transporting more than 1,500 metric tonnes of food to opposition-held areas of Nasir was looted while moving along the river next to Baliet County, in Upper Nile. The government-appointed county commissioner organised the raid, which was carried out with the participation of the community, according to government officials in Malakal, the state capital, as well as two diplomats. Some of the stolen food was then taken to Malakal for sale; the county commissioner has not been arrested or removed for his role in the raid. The New Humanitarian was unable to reach him for comment.

In one incident, government soldiers looted hundreds of boxes of medical supplies from a humanitarian-run facility near Ayod town in January, shortly after recapturing a nearby military barracks, according to an NGO incident report and multiple interviews. The facility was stripped bare.

Health facilities have been singled out during recent fighting. Since the beginning of the year, 28 facilities have been looted or damaged in Jonglei alone, according to the UN.

In one incident, government soldiers looted hundreds of boxes of medical supplies from a humanitarian-run facility near Ayod town in January, shortly after recapturing a nearby military barracks, according to an NGO incident report and multiple interviews. The facility was stripped bare. Solar panels, doors, and the cool boxes used to store vaccines were all taken by the soldiers.

Opposition fighters have also looted, according to more than half a dozen sources. Last September, fighters loyal to Tut, who supports the SPLM/A-IO, seized WFP and UNICEF aid in Ayod. Opposition-allied fighters also stripped humanitarian-operated health facilities as they retreated during the counteroffensive last month, intent on leaving nothing behind for government forces.

As well as food and medicine, other humanitarian assets like Land Cruisers and Starlink internet terminals have become valuable resources for waging war.

At least 14 humanitarian Land Cruisers were seized by fighters from both sides during recent fighting in Jonglei, one senior aid worker reported. Some were then used to transport heavy weaponry.

One NGO director in Jonglei laughed when asked whether his organisation’s assets had been used by any of the belligerent parties. “Even the internet that the opposition is using to speak with you now – that’s our internet!” they said.

“They tax, they tax, they tax”

The institutional benefits of humanitarian agencies extend beyond outright theft.

As people enter areas seeking assistance, and populations grow, traders begin to import food and other goods to meet growing demand. Commercial airlines open new routes. Civilians become exploitable labour, so soldiers no longer need to spend hours each day cutting their own firewood or doing other mundane chores.

Thanks to South Sudan’s protracted economic collapse, humanitarian organisations have also become major taxpayers in Juba, and at the state and county level, where they are often the principal source of funds.

Two aid workers in Jonglei said their staff pay 10% of their monthly salary to local authorities in the areas they control, all off the books.

Another recalled how families in Ayod complained that government officials had collected 10 kilos of sorghum from each family’s 50-kilo sack after a recent food distribution.

“When the food is given by WFP, they tax, they tax, they tax – every family,” he said. “They get a lot of food for themselves that way, both sides.”

The SPLM/A-IO, cash-strapped and bereft of financial support, is also aware that NGOs represent valuable sources of cash, and has developed parallel administrations in the areas under its control.

Still, it is the government that benefits the most from the infrastructural advantages and tax base that the humanitarians provide. It goes to great lengths to control aid agencies’ areas of operation.

It does this by restricting where flights can land, arresting aid workers who work in opposition-held areas, and threatening to take away humanitarian organisations’ operating licenses, which are provided by officials in Juba.

Eight aid workers who spoke to The New Humanitarian said their organisations had faced significant pressure from authorities to relocate their operations from opposition areas, where most of the war-affected civilian population now resides, to government areas. They, like others who were interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear that their organisations would face retaliation.

Last June, Justin Nhial Batoang, the government-appointed commissioner of Ulang County, another opposition stronghold in Upper Nile, gave humanitarian organisations 72 hours to relocate their operations to the government-controlled county headquarters or have their licenses revoked and be labelled “the enemy of peace”.

“The authorities of Ulang will not be responsible if anything happens to an organisation” that continues “operating under the territory of the SPLM-IO or any other political party”, he warned in a statement.

Opposition officials have issued similar ultimatums, though with far less authority to back them up. “Ultimately, the green light for access comes from Juba,” one aid worker said.

An unlikely supporter

Some recent attempts to push back on aid manipulation and diversion have been controversial.

On 8 January, the US government announced that it was suspending all foreign assistance to Ayod County, barring humanitarians from spending American money there.

Yet far from admonishing Kiir’s regime as the Americans intended, the diplomats may have ended up supporting its counterinsurgency.

The suspension occurred after a series of incidents in Ayod town, the county headquarters, involving aid workers being detained and humanitarian assets being seized by the government-appointed commissioner, James Chuol Jiek. During one incident, construction equipment hired by the UN for the rehabilitation of roads was used by the commissioner to dig trenches for the army. Contacted for comment, Jiek’s office denied that these incidents had occurred, while saying an apology letter had been issued.

The suspension of aid was supposed to demonstrate “US resolve to forcefully respond when South Sudanese officials take advantage of the United States instead of working in partnership with us to help the South Sudanese people,” the US embassy said in a statement.

While this means government-held Ayod town is denied US-funded humanitarian aid, it has both a functioning market and an airstrip. The rural opposition-held areas of Ayod, in contrast, are facing flooded fields and government attacks, and have little means to import desperately needed food supplies, said humanitarians who had recently visited the area. Aid agencies with US funding were forced to look for other donors, in a landscape of extremely restricted humanitarian financing, in order to comply with the American directive.

Among aid workers, the American decision has been divisive. Critics say the move punishes a civilian population that is itself harassed by the government and not a beneficiary of its actions. Others acknowledge that a firm stance towards the regime was overdue, even as they fear the decision’s adverse effects.

“In principle, [the US directive] is the implementation of an actual red line, which has been needed in South Sudan, albeit in an uncoordinated way with a complete disregard for outcomes,” said Chris Newton, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Some aid workers have also criticised a recent allocation of roughly $100 million by the US into the South Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SSHF), a country-based pooled fund controlled by OCHA.

OCHA had a relatively short six-month window in which to spend the funds and an overwhelming number of “priority 1” counties, or areas with the highest severity of humanitarian needs. It decided to omit many parts of the country held by the opposition and impacted by recent fighting, including Nasir and much of northern Jonglei.

The head of OCHA in South Sudan, David Carden, confirmed that his agency did not allocate the US funds to opposition-held counties most affected by the violence but said $11.4 million was set aside for Akobo, Nyirol, Uror and Nasir over the past four months through other sources.

Nonetheless, many humanitarians fear donor requirements to spend funds quickly risk trumping real humanitarian needs and rewarding government-held territories at the expense of difficult-to-access, opposition-held areas.

For communities facing the brunt of state violence, such decisions are unlikely to ease the perception that aid is aligned with those in power.

“Why,” the Nuer prophet Tut asked The New Humanitarian in July 2025, “are the humanitarians always supporting the government?”

Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.

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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.