Tuesday, March 25, 2025(Nyamilepedia) — South Sudan People Defense Forces and allied Ugandan troops, the Ugandan People Defense Forces (UPDF), started bombarding the SPLA-IO based in Wunaliet near Juba from Monday evening, March 25, and fighting continued into Tuesday morning.
According to the SPLM/A-IO military spokesperson, Col. Lam Paul Gabriel, the bombardment on their cantonment site started at 7:00pm.
“Bombardment of SPLA-IO cantonment site of Wunaliet near Juba.This evening at about 1900 hours, SSPDF bombarded randomly the SPLA-IO cantonment site.” Col. Lam Paul Gabriel said.
The SPLA-IO military leadership condemns the attack on their position in the strongest terms possible and calls on the international community to intervene to help deescalate the violence.
“The SPLA-IO strongly condemns this SSPDF planned act and calls for urgent intervention from the International Community to stop this violence that is being waged by the SSPDF” Col Lam added.
Paul further reiterates that the provocative action of the SSPDF is a violation of the R-ARCSS and therefore President Kiir must keep his promise to never return the country back to war.
The main armed opposition decries the act of aggression on their senior leadership in Juba.
Within the last three weeks, many senior leaders of the SPLM/A-IO that include the Chief of Staff of SPLA-IO, Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, Minister of Petroleum, Hon. Puot Kang Chuol, and more than 20 others were picked up from their homes in Juba and arrested. Many of these leaders remain in detention without access to justice and it’s not clear whether they would be released any time soon.
Earlier reports government from the SSPDF spokesperson, Maj Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, accused the SPLA-IO forces in Wunaliet of advancing towards their forces in Luri and called on Dr. Machar to call off his forces.
Maj Gen. Lul alleged that the SPLA-IO forces made advancement on their positions in aggressive manner and pleads to Dr. Riek Machar to oversee the activities of his forces.
“They came very close to our hot post at Nyamuni. The SPLA-IO forces in the area made advance toward them. Because we do not want to engage in unintentional confrontations, the base commander ordered for forces to pull back to avoid emminent clashes” Gen. Lul said.
“The CDF, Gen. Dr. Paul Nang, instructed me to come on air to come and appeal to the SPLA-IO Commander in Chief, who is also the First Vice President of the Republic, to get in touch with his forces who are around Juba on the need for them to deescalate the situation by not taking offensive posture, by not conducting patrols and by not sending recce [reconnaissance]” He continued.
Shortly after Maj. Gen. Lul’s statement, which was aired on SSBC, the SPLM/A-IO forces in Wunaliet came under bombardment.
The SSPDF and Ugandan troops, the UPDF, have been on bombardment campaign in Upper Nile since the local youth of Nasir, the White Army, overrun a government garrison in Wechyar-Adiu and took its control from government forces.
The bombardment in Nasir, Ulang, Akobo and Longechuk is reported to have killed over 1000 people, mostly civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
“The numbers of death we have recorded from the UPDF indiscriminate bombardments on civilians from Nasir, Ulang, Longechuk and Akobo counties are One Thousand, One Hundreds and forty two people (1,142) with a total of One Thousand, Seven Hundreds and Forty Six (1,746) wounded civilians.” Read part of a report extended to Nyamilepedia.
