Sudan's Post

This investigation examines previous incidents, reviews accounts from local and official sources, and traces the flow of illicit weaponry to assess the competing claims over who carried out the Abiemnom massacre.

JUBA — In the early hours of Sunday, March 1, 2026, armed assailants launched a coordinated attack on Awarpiny, the administrative headquarters of Awarpiny County in South Sudan’s Ruweng Administrative Area (RAA). The assault, which lasted from approximately 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., left at least 169 people dead—who were subsequently buried in mass graves—along with 68 wounded and 15 missing, according to local leaders. 

Victims included women, children, the elderly, and young men, underscoring the scale and indiscriminate nature of the violence.  The incident follows a pattern of recurring attacks on Abiemnom. In April 2025, armed men carried out a similar assault on the area—which was, until October 2015, a payam within Abiemnom County of Unity State—killing at least 27 people and injuring 17 others. The repeated violence has deepened insecurity in the northern region of South Sudan and raised questions over the specific drivers and military backing behind these attacks.

In the aftermath of the latest killings, responsibility remains highly contested. Authorities in the Ruweng Administrative Area stated that armed rebels, including elements of the main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLA-IO), were behind the attack. Officials in neighboring Unity State echoed this claim, stating that SPLA-IO fighters displaced by recent clashes in northern Unity had moved into the area to carry out the assault. 

However, community leaders and former RAA officials strongly dispute that version of events. They assert the attackers were not affiliated with the SPLA-IO, but were instead armed youth from Mayom County operating with direct logistical and political support from senior government and military officials, specifically targeting the SSPDF’s 4^th Infantry Division under the command of Lt. Gen. Matthew Puljang.

This investigation examines previous incidents, reviews accounts from local and official sources, and traces the flow of illicit weaponry to assess the competing claims over who carried out the Abiemnom massacre.

ORGANIZED YOUTH RETALIATION OR MILITARY OPERATION? 

Accounts from fighters on the ground point to retaliation as the immediate trigger for the mobilization. A youth leader who stated he participated in the attack provided a chronology linking the assault to a series of unresolved allegations of killings of young men from Mayom County at checkpoints in Abiemnom in February 2026. 

“Within the second week of February, there was a certain boy driving a motorcycle. That boy is from Mayom County. He went to Abiemnom County. He took one of the passengers, one of the persons. He transported him to Abiemnom after [trying to] go back to Mayom. On his way, at the first checkpoint, when you are moving out of Abiemnom, that checkpoint is known as Shabab Checkpoint. At Shabab Checkpoint, they tried to stop this motorcycle. They were telling him that he cannot take somebody with him. Immediately, they captured the boy. They took the boy to the bush and killed him. That was the first thing. Second, at the end of the same month, February, there were two boys who went to a cattle camp,” the youth leader told Sudans Post.

“On their way back, across a certain checkpoint, which is not Shabab Checkpoint, a checkpoint called Awila, there were three soldiers who came from the bushes. When they were coming back, they stopped those two boys. They told them to stop. When they told them to stop, they detained them. They took them away. They went and killed them. They burned them alive,” he added.

 

However, Theje de Aduot Deng, chairman of the Ruweng Community Union in Juba, provided a different account. He described a highly coordinated military assault rather than a spontaneous revenge attack, detailing how armed formations encircled the area and inflicted mass casualties before burying the victims.

“On March 1, 2026, at around 05:00 in the morning, a force from the Terchuong militia arrived. This force was coming from Mayom County and included elements of Division Four. That morning, the force encircled the Ruweng area and then opened fire indiscriminately with the intention of killing civilians,” Deng said in a recorded statement on the day of the attack.

“In this attack, the number of people who died and were buried this morning is 169. They include women, children, adults, and youths. They were buried this morning in the Abiemnom area in a mass grave. The number of people who were wounded is 68. Those who are missing, having fled due to the intensity of the gunfire, are 15 people so far, and this number may increase,” he added.

Beyond the tactical execution of the assault, Deng directly accused senior political and military figures in Unity State, and not the SPLA-IO, of orchestrating the massacre. He alleged that local administrators and senior SSPDF commanders mobilized the “Terchuong” youth militia as a proxy force, using them alongside regular army units in a premeditated operation.

“The main question is who is responsible for the killing of our civilians in Abiemnom. The first person responsible for this massacre in Abiemnom is the Commissioner of Mayom County, Honorable Jackson Mut. He is the one who planned and armed the Terchuong youth of Mayom and launched the attack. If there is a second person, it is the Governor of Unity State, Riek Bim. He was aware of the movement of the Mayom militia towards Abiemnom. If there is a third person, it is the division commander, Puljang Top,” he said.

“Before the massacre, Puljang sent people to Abiemnom telling residents that nothing would happen, but after they left, the attack took place. This is not the first time Puljang has done something like this. In April 2025, Puljang went to Abiemnom, and after he arrived and later left, people were killed,” he added.

Sudans Post approached the current County Commissioner of Mayom, Jackson Mut, for comment on these claims, but he declined. However, during the previous attack in April 2025, then commissioner, Gen. James Liyliy Kuol, confirmed the involvement of civilians from his county in the fighting, though he claimed they were acting in self-defense after being attacked by residents of Abiemnom.

At that time, Liyliy stated that Mayom youth were surrounded by a mixed group of Abiemnom civilians and SSPDF soldiers. He then criticized the local SSPDF commander, who he said came from the 3^rd Infantry Division in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, for escalating the conflict. Sudans Post was unable to verify the veracity of these claims

SPLA-IO DENIAL

 

Following the March 2026 attack, the SPLA-IO denied responsibility, attributing the violence entirely to communal youth from Mayom County. SPLA-IO Sector Two spokesman Major Kerbino Yai Pazale accused Unity State authorities of attempting to shift blame, stating that his forces remained in their designated cantonment sites. 

“We categorically reject allegations linking the SPLA-IO to the attacks against civilians in Abiemnom. Our forces stationed in Kubri Jamus remain in their designated positions and have not conducted any military operation targeting civilian populations. The SPLA-IO respects civilian life and strictly adheres to the laws of war governing armed conflict,” he told Sudans Post at the time.

“The protection of innocent civilians remains a fundamental principle guiding our conduct, and we do not tolerate violations against non-combatants under any circumstances. We strongly condemn the attacks carried out against civilians and local authorities in Abiemnom. This is false, politically motivated, and intended to deflect responsibility from the actual perpetrators. We call upon UNMISS to carry out an independent and transparent investigation to ensure that those responsible are identified and held accountable in accordance with the law,” he added.

Local sources in Mayom County also dispute the government’s claim of an SPLA-IO offensive. One source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, states that the attack does not include SPLA-IO and dismissed claims that there is presence for the main armed opposition group in Mayom County.

“There is no SPLA-IO presence in Greater Mayom… There is not a single SPLA-IO element in Mayom County that could justify attributing responsibility to the group. The only individual linked to SPLA-IO is Maj. Gen. Mathok Thiep, who returned from Juba due to illness before the conflict resumed. He was arrested on February 4, 2026, along with Brig. Gen. Peter Rob Yak. Both had arrived before the outbreak of violence and remained in the area thereafter,” the source said.

THE HEGLIG WEAPON TRAIL

Evidence gathered by Sudans Post indicates the firepower utilized in the Abiemnom massacre originated across the northern border, entering circulation through official government channels just months prior.

Following the collapse of Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) positions in late 2025, retreating units from the SAF’s 90^th Infantry Brigade (22^nd Infantry Division) crossed from the Heglig oilfield into northern Unity State on December 8, 2025. They were disarmed by the South Sudanese army, surrendering significant quantities of light and heavy weapons. These arms were absorbed into SSPDF stockpiles at a time when the military faced acute shortages.

According to multiple sources in Bentiu, Juba, and Pan Akuach, these weapons were not kept in neutral custody. Instead, some were routed through Rotriak and transferred toward Mayom County to arm allied youth militias.

Two SSPDF soldiers in Bentiu told Sudans Post that Lt. Gen. Matthew Puljang Top provided at least 379 AK-47 rifles and 2,500 rounds of ammunition to Brig. Gen. Gadit Ruazel in Pan Akuach. Gatdit, a former youth leader from Mayom County who defected to the SSPDF alongside Gen. Puljang in 2013, has historically mobilized armed youth to act as a proxy relief force for the military.

The direct link between this government-supplied weaponry and the Mayom youth was established in January 2026. Local sources confirm the SSPDF initially mobilized and armed these youth under Gatdit Ruazel to recapture Tor Abiath and Kaljak from opposition elements who had captured those areas earlier in the month.

A youth source in Mayom confirmed the fighters were armed at Tumor, roughly 21 kilometers west of Kaljak, and were promised impunity to loot in exchange for their participation.

“General Puljang is the one who mobilized youth and gave them weapons in January to go and recapture Tor Abiath and Kaljak,” the source said, adding that the youth subsequently engaged in widespread looting and raping during the offensive.

Government Silence and the Olony Confirmation South Sudanese authorities have not publicly accounted for the fate of the weapons surrendered by the SAF 90^th Infantry Brigade. Despite framing the December 2025 disarmament as a neutral border security measure, the government has provided no inventory. Sudans Post submitted detailed questions to the SSPDF spokesperson seeking clarification on the handling of the weapons but received no response.

However, the government’s quiet integration of these weapons into its internal war effort was inadvertently confirmed by Gen. Johnson Olony Thabo. On January 18, 2026, while addressing his allied Agwelek militia in Poktap, Jonglei State, Olony publicly stated his forces were awaiting the arrival of weapons seized from Heglig before proceeding to the frontline against the SPLA-IO.

“When we went to Heglig the other day, there was a [good] number of vehicles and a [good number] of PKMs and heavy weapons, those will hopefully arrive today. Because all the units who came ahead of you, have their own vehicles. You must also have your own vehicles and artillery. if the government does not bring them, we will let those who have vehicles go [to the frontline] and we will stay,” he told the forces.

 

This rare public admission provided crucial insight into the military’s logistics. It established an undeniable pattern that the SSPDF was actively funneling the surrendered SAF stockpile to proxy militias across the country to fight internal battles.

By distributing these SAF weapons, the military effectively flooded Mayom County with illicit arms and transformed the local youth into a heavily armed standing militia.

When localized tensions flared over the alleged extrajudicial killings of Mayom boys at Abiemnom checkpoints in February, this newly equipped proxy force was already mobilized. Rather than acting as a spontaneous, lightly armed revenge mob, the attackers who encircled Abiemnom on March 1 arrived with the tactical coordination and heavy firepower supplied by the SSPDF just weeks prior.

Taken together, the evidence suggests a direct pipeline: Sudanese weapons moved from cross-border disarmament into SSPDF stockpiles, were confirmed to be distributed to proxy forces like Olony’s and the Mayom youth in January, and ultimately fueled the devastating scale of the Abiemnom massacre in March.

SECURITY OUTLOOK BETWEEN UNITY STATE AND THE RUWENG

 

The violence in Abiemnom cannot be viewed solely as a localized revenge cycle, but as symptomatic of deep-rooted structural and territorial disputes engineered by cattle raiding and administrative gerrymandering by President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s administration.

 

The Ruweng Administrative Area (RAA) was formally established as a distinct administrative entity in 2020 following the reversion to 10 states, though its conceptual boundaries were drawn during President Salva Kiir’s controversial 2015 administrative reorganization (the 28-state decree).

By carving the RAA out of what was traditionally Unity State, the government established a new territory predominantly inhabited by the Ruweng Dinka. Crucially, this area encompasses some of South Sudan’s most lucrative oil-producing infrastructure. The creation of the RAA alienated the majority Nuer population of Unity State, who viewed the boundary changes as a political maneuver by Juba to annex oil revenues and consolidate Dinka territorial control.

The administrative map of the RAA is geographically disjointed, which heavily contributes to its security vulnerabilities. The RAA is primarily composed of two former Unity State counties, Parieng and Abiemnom.

However, Parieng and Abiemnom do not share a physical border. They are geographically severed from one another by Rubkona and Mayom counties—both of which belong to Unity State and are predominantly inhabited by the Nuer.

Because Abiemnom exists as an isolated geographical enclave surrounded by Mayom County to the south and east, and the contested Abyei/Sudan border to the north, it is highly susceptible to blockades and cross-border raids. Any administrative, security, or logistical connection between Abiemnom and the rest of the RAA (Parieng) requires traversing hostile territory.