South Sudan

The elections scheduled for December 2024 were a salient feature throughout the year. In July, current president Salva Kiir announced that he would stand in the ballot. Efforts to prepare the legislative and institutional framework for the elections were contested and behind schedule. The weakening of Riak Machar’s SPLM-IO (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition) continued, and opposition groups outside the 2018 peace agreement remained fragmented, with sporadic clashes with government forces. The major event impacting South Sudan’s domestic and foreign affairs was the outbreak of armed conflict in Khartoum on 15 April, which caused new insecurity, refugee flows, and uncertainty over oil exports through Sudan. Salva Kiir took a leading role in IGAD-sponsored regional efforts to mediate the conflict, working with both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a year that saw him travel widely, from Riyadh to New York and Moscow. A decade after the irruption of conflict in December 2013, South Sudan faced new levels of displacement, humanitarian need, and suffering, including food insecurity, and was confronted with the continuing effects of conflict and climate change.