Who is the White Army?

[John Ashworth]

Who is the White Army, the militia at the centre of renewed conflict
in South Sudan?

“What we want is for the community to live peacefully.”

Joseph Falzetta
The New Humanitarian
17 September 2025
JUBA

To many in South Sudan’s government, they are rebels bent on
overthrowing the state. In most media accounts, they appear as a
brutal, faceless mob with no clear grievances.

But to White Army fighters like Both Nhial, the group’s purpose is
clear and just: To defend their communities against a predatory state
and state-backed rival militias. “What we need is for the community to
live in peace,” he said.

Drawn from the ethnic Nuer communities in the vast swamplands
surrounding the Nile, the White Army is a patchwork of communitarian
militias that in recent months have battled South Sudan’s military in
a conflict that has displaced tens of thousands, pushed parts of the
country to the brink of famine, and raised fears of a second
full-scale civil war since independence in 2011.

Fighting between the militia and government forces began in March in
the town of Nasir, where an adultery-related dispute sparked clashes
between national soldiers – detested locally for abusive behavior –
and local White Army fighters, who fought alongside opposition forces
during the 2013-2018 civil war, which killed an estimated 400,000
people.

What started as a local row quickly entered the realm of national
politics after the regime of President Salva Kiir accused opposition
officials of instigating the attack. Last week, opposition leader Riek
Machar – who has been under house arrest since March – was indicted on
a slew of charges including murder, terrorism, and crimes against
humanity, and suspended from his position as first vice president.

His indictment significantly ups the risk of a national conflagration.
On Monday, acting opposition chairman Nathaniel Oyet released a
statement calling for party members and supporters to “report for
national service” and “use all means available to regain their country
and their sovereignty”.

As the political crisis in Juba deepens, violence outside the capital
has metastasised. Pro-government troops are battling Machar’s forces,
but also local militias like the White Army, unleashing waves of
aerial bombardments on their positions. The impact on civilians has
been immense.

Analysts and UN officials warn that the crisis could engulf South
Sudan in local uprisings, fuel widespread ethnic violence, or merge
with the war across the border in Sudan, where the world’s largest
humanitarian crisis shows no signs of abating.

Yet missing from much of the analysis is a clear understanding of the
group at the centre of the unravelling: Who is the White Army, what
drives its fighters, and how, if at all, are they linked to the
political opposition?

To answer these questions, The New Humanitarian interviewed more than
two dozen people, including White Army fighters and leaders, South
Sudanese political officials, and regional experts.

Interviews portray a disjointed, unwieldy, and outgunned force that is
nonetheless widely supported by grassroots communities at home and in
the diaspora who view it as a last line of defense against encroaching
state aggression.

White Army fighters see the conflict largely through the lens of
ethnic identity – hardened under colonial rule and during ensuing
conflicts – and feel their communities are unfairly in the crosshairs
of the national government. Yet the group’s fighters have also been
accused of horrific atrocities.

The White Army offers a window into popular frustration with a
faltering peace process – one that many feel is irrelevant at best,
and at worst has marginalised them politically, funnelled the
country’s wealth into a narrow coterie of elite hands, and failed to
deliver security across most of the country.

“If there was a strong government, this White Army wouldn't have
existed in the first place,” said a political analyst and conflict
mediation worker from Upper Nile state, where much of the recent
fighting has taken place. They asked not to be named, citing the risk
of reprisals.

How the conflict started

The White Army emerged in the 1990s, before South Sudan gained
independence, following a split among southern rebels fighting the
Sudanese government under the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM), according to John Young, an academic who has researched the
White Army extensively.

After Riek Machar, then an SPLM commander, broke away to form a new
faction, he drew support from cattle keepers among his own Nuer ethnic
group by tapping into animosity between the Nuer and mostly Dinka
SPLM.

In 2011, after rejoining the SPLM, Machar became the first vice
president of a newly independent state. But a power struggle with
President Salva Kiir, who is Dinka, sparked civil war just two years
later, and Machar rebelled under the banner of a new group, the
SPLM-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO). The massacre of Nuer civilians by
government soldiers in Juba once again rallied the White Army to his
side.

The ensuing peace process was supposed to reconcile Kiir and Machar by
bringing their factions into a unity government. But the initial
three-year transitional period allocated to form a unified military
and hold national elections has been repeatedly extended after both
sides failed to meet milestones laid out in the agreement.

Ethnic militias like the White Army, and the communities they are
drawn from, feel abandoned by elites on all sides who have jostled for
lucrative political positions in the capital rather than integrate
their forces into a unified army to provide desperately needed
security. Though a ceasefire between the two parties had, until
earlier this year, mostly held, parts of the country have at times
experienced greater levels of violence than during the war.

In Nasir – where the government established a garrison during the
2013-2018 conflict – unpaid and isolated soldiers frequently clashed
with local Nuer youth, who viewed them as little more than thuggish
occupiers.

“They raped, killed, and raided cattle,” said Samuel Dak, a
60-year-old White Army fighter from Upper Nile who was injured during
a clash with the army in April. “That is not the mandate of the
government.”

Dak, who is decades older than most White Army fighters, said he first
took up arms in the 1980s as part of the early SPLM struggle, hoping
to liberate Nasir town from the Sudanese army. Forty years later,
however, he finds himself fighting the state he helped create. “A lot
has changed since independence,” he said.

He accused the SPLM of becoming a “tribal militia” dominated by the
Dinka ethnic group of President Kiir, and wanted the troops stationed
in Nasir replaced with a better-trained force that included local
representation.

“We tried to communicate our complaints,” said Nhial, “but there was
no improvement.”

It was against this backdrop that the fighters said they attacked the
Nasir army barracks. Then, in the aftermath of an initial clash on 3
March, news spread that a popular White Army leader had been beheaded,
while barges of government troops were headed towards the town.

The next day, enraged by the alleged beheading and fearing an
impending assault by the incoming soldiers, the White Army mobilised
hundreds more fighters and overran the garrison, killing more than 250
soldiers including a major general, according to the government. A
failed attempt to de-escalate the situation by evacuating stranded
soldiers also left a UN aircrew member dead.

“[The national army] are always killing people. They are not
peaceful,” said Gatwech Tuach, a 32-year-old White Army leader who was
wounded during the fighting in Nasir. “So we decided to attack the
barracks and just kill them all. We decided that we needed to fight.”

Cattle keepers, farmers, and fishermen

In the aftermath of the attack, Information Minister Michael Makuei –
who is under US sanctions for undercutting the peace process – likened
the White Army to Hamas and called on the UN and the African Union to
recognise the militia as a terrorist organisation.

Yet at a field hospital near the Ethiopian border, wounded White Army
fighters described themselves in different terms – not as a rebel
group with national objectives, but as cattle keepers, farmers, and
fishermen defending their communities.

Many said that joining the White Army – less a standing force than a
locally organised patchwork of fighters that can be activated when
needed – was a cultural expectation for young men in the area.

All said they had little formal education, and most acknowledged the
draw that men without job prospects have to the group, which
participates in cattle raiding from other communities or attacks on
government armories.

“If you didn’t go to school and you are just engaged in farming, it is
obvious you’re in the White Army,” Nhial said.

While fighters emphasised the White Army’s local and defensive nature,
rights groups have documented numerous atrocities committed at the
group’s hands – often ethnically targeted and sometimes committed
dozens of kilometres from their home areas.

In 1991, the White Army attacked the town of Bor, killing an estimated
2,000 people, mostly civilians, and raiding thousands of cattle. It
was one of the “greatest humanitarian disasters” of the war, wrote
Young, the academic, in a 2016 research paper, and earned the White
Army “a lasting reputation for being ruthless, cattle thieves,
murderers” and “beyond the control of government”.

In recent years, its forces have killed civilians, trafficked women
and children, and systematically destroyed vital infrastructure,
according to reports by UN-affiliated experts. White Army commanders
say that such brutality is in retaliation for similar violence
committed against their own communities.

“We don’t have rules that say, for example, you cannot be killed if
you are a prisoner,” Tuach said. “We are tit-for-tat, an eye for an
eye. It has always been like that.”

Counter-insurgency operations deepen grievances

Backed by Uganda, a longtime supporter of President Kiir, the national
army has carried out dozens of aerial bombardments since March, mostly
in White Army strongholds. Those strikes have targeted SPLM-IO and
White Army positions, but have also displaced tens of thousands of
civilians and allegedly hit a hospital run by Médecins Sans
Frontières. The government has not officially taken responsibility for
that strike.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled to refugee camps in Ethiopia,
while others are experiencing famine conditions in makeshift camps
that aid agencies have struggled to reach.

International observers have questioned whether the military
operations violate the peace agreement. But in a June interview,
Presidential Affairs Minister Choul Ajongo defended the military
actions, saying they were designed to preserve the state’s rightful
sovereignty and "monopoly on violence”.

Government officials said troops were sent to Nasir when tensions were
escalating not to reinforce the barracks but to address community
complaints by rotating out problematic soldiers.

The counterinsurgency, specifically the aerial attacks, have become a
source of deep resentment for White Army fighters, who feel they are
being unfairly targeted, and with disproportionate force, on the basis
of their Nuer identity.

Tuach, the White Army commander, accused the military of arming and
fighting alongside other ethnic militia with whom Nuer communities
have longstanding grievances, and of using aerial bombardments
indiscriminately. Several independent researchers have echoed those
claims.

“They are killing Nuer with chemical bombs,” Tuach said, referring to
the military’s alleged use of incendiary weapons during early strikes
in March. “It is clear that they have now made this a tribal issue.”

James Wal, a White Army leader from Jonglei state, which is adjacent
to Upper Nile, said Nuer areas may need to secede if the attacks
against them continue. “If the world stands by and does nothing, our
only option may be self-determination,” he said.

Wal cited a government memo from March that labelled Nuer counties as
either “hostile” or “friendly” as proof of government targeting.
Still, he held out hope that “this was just the opinion of some
people” and not the government as a whole.

Fear of ethnic targeting is felt in the capital too. On the outskirts
of Juba, around 40,000 mostly Nuer displaced people live in shelters
of sticks, mud, and tarpaulin, clustered around a UN peacekeeping
base.

Most fled there in 2013, when civil war broke out and government
soldiers went door to door killing Nuer civilians. However, earlier
this year, following Machar’s arrest, thousands more sought refuge in
the camp, fearing renewed violence.

Inside a makeshift office built from a shipping container, community
leaders originally from Upper Nile described residents being found
dead or missing around the camp. They shared photos of corpses – young
men with their hands bound – discovered near the camp, though The New
Humanitarian could not independently verify them. “People are afraid
to leave,” one community leader said. “It is like a jail.”

“Different groups with different objectives”

During interviews in June, White Army commanders pushed back heavily
on accusations that they were acting on behalf of the SPLM-IO, even if
they acknowledged sometimes overlapping objectives.

A September 11 government press briefing says the White Army acted in
Nasir “under the command and influence of certain leaders of the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement/Army-in-Opposition, including Dr. Riek
Machar Teny, through coordinated military and political structures”.

No evidence has been made public to support that charge. Some
government officials, however, said privately that while Machar may
not have directly commanded White Army fighters to attack the barracks
in Nasir, his history of arming them and rallying them to his side
makes him responsible for their actions.

White Army fighters, for their part, bristled at accusations of
loyalty to faraway politicians. Many said that the incarcerated vice
president had long abandoned the grassroots and had become absorbed in
personal political goals.

“Machar has no command over us,” Nhial said. “No one has seen his face
since the war.” Several fighters said they wanted to see both him and
Kiir step down and blamed Machar’s political ambitions for the deaths
of Nuer civilians.

Young described the group as “fiercely independent”, though it is
influenced by different actors – politicians, generals, elders,
prophets, “but isn’t answerable or loyal to any of them”.

Others acknowledged that the government’s claim of links between the
SPLM-IO and the White Army wasn’t baseless – even if nobody argued
that Machar directly orchestrated the violence.

“We have a good relationship with the IO,” said Tuach, the White army
leader, “but we are different groups with different objectives.” Wal,
the commander from Jonglei, said that “both the White Army and the IO
are defenders of the Nuer.”

Daniel Akech, a South Sudan expert with the International Crisis
Group, said that in some locations the White Army is composed of
significant numbers of former opposition fighters who were never
integrated into the army after the war.

“A key mistake of the 2018 peace agreement is that it functions as an
elite deal that only benefits those at the top, leaving out the
regular soldiers and allied militias,” he said. “At the end of the
war, former fighters from the SPLA-IO went back to civilian life and
joined other armed locals that conduct raids and protect their
communities.”

Akech said the White Army is not primarily interested in national
politics, and that while the government’s real target is the SPLM-IO,
it often conflates the opposition, the White Army, and Nuer
communities.

While some analysts said Kiir’s regime is seeking to use the White
Army to advance its political agenda against the opposition, several
said the SPLM-IO leadership has also historically instrumentalised the
group – and continues to do so today.

“The opposition knows that a major source of power is the White Army,”
said the Upper Nile political analyst. “When you go to White Army
leaders, and you advise them ‘you shouldn’t participate in [SPLM-IO
objectives] it won’t benefit you,’ then the IO will be very mad at
you.”

Outgunned but undefeated

In June, White Army commanders in Upper Nile said the group was
enormously outgunned by government forces, and had sustained
devastating casualties during its operations.

The group’s disjointed structure makes territorial victories difficult
to sustain. Rather than moving as a single cohesive force, the White
Army is made up of local units headed by elected leaders responsible
for protecting their own communities, and who are often unwilling to
fight beyond their home areas.

Wal is one of the leaders of the Lou Nuer White Army, one of the
largest factions, which has largely remained out of the current
fighting. In March, after the attack on Nasir, the Lou Nuer White Army
sheltered fleeing government soldiers and aided their return to Juba
“in the interest of peace”, he said.

Asked if he planned to enter the fight against government forces, Wal
said, “we will stay and protect the community here. If we are
attacked, we will fight. But for now we are for peace”. He added that
another red line would be an attack against Nuer civilians in Juba.

In April, after a month of intense fighting, the militia – running low
on ammunition and having suffered high casualties – left Nasir and
allowed the army to retake the town. Sporadic hit and runs on the
army’s positions have since prompted additional airstrikes there.

Still, in northern Jonglei state, White Army fighters have had some
success by pushing government forces from some of their redoubts along
the Nile.

Last month, White Army fighters under the command of the influential
Nuer prophet Tut Makuach mobilised to attack a government position in
Pigi, a strategic outpost in northern Jonglei. Those fighters had
largely remained out of the fighting until August but now threaten to
march into Upper Nile, looting cattle, humanitarian food stocks, and
weapons as they go.

Some believe it’s only a matter of time before other factions, like
the fighters commanded by Wal, are sucked into the fighting, bringing
entire swathes of the country into full revolt.

White Army factions also receive material support – helping to sustain
their operations – from within South Sudan and from individuals in the
diaspora, several sources told The New Humanitarian.

Mayang Tut, a South Sudanese businessman living in the Middle East,
said that earlier this year he organised support for the White Army,
including first aid training, shipments of food supplies, and
communications systems using imported Starlink terminals.

Tut described the Nuer diaspora as “the backbone” of the White Army,
and said fundraising efforts are regularly coordinated by Nuer living
abroad, though he declined to say how much is raised or how funds are
delivered.

Some analysts say the war in Sudan – where the national army has been
battling the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than two
years – could increasingly shape the conflict, and broader events in
South Sudan.

The Sudanese army suspects South Sudan’s government of growing too
close to the RSF, and is believed to have supplied arms to some South
Sudanese factions opposed to Juba, though there is currently no
evidence of direct support to the White Army.

Some White Army leaders, like Tuach, have pledged to continue the
fight until the army is defeated, whatever the cost. “We don’t
recognise the government as legitimate anymore,” he said. “This is
Nuer land. We will fight back until we take full control.”

Others are losing hope that a military victory is possible. Nhial said
many fighters have sold their weapons to raise funds to transport
their families to refugee camps in Ethiopia. “Many people have been
killed. Our families have been displaced,” he said. “We will leave
Nasir town for the army and look for new opportunities for our
families.”

Edited by Philip Kleinfeld.

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2025/09/17/white-army-militia-centre-renewed-conflict-south-sudan

END
______________________
John Ashworth

ashwor...@gmail.com

+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile, WhatsApp and Signal)

PO Box 403 - 00206, Kiserian, Kenya