Spreading fallout: The collapse of the ARCSS and new conflict along the Equatorias-DRC border (HSBA Issue Brief 28)

Available in:  ENGLISH

Spreading fallout: The collapse of the ARCSS and new conflict along the Equatorias-DRC border examines the failed peace efforts to end the three-year civil war in South Sudan and the subsequent spillover of the conflict across its borders into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). First it discusses Machar’s flight from Juba across Greater Equatoria into the DRC’s Garamba National Park with hundreds of loyalists who were later extracted on political and humanitarian grounds by the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). It provides a background to and context for their ongoing presence in the DRC under the indefinite care of MONUSCO. The brief then explores the cross-border dynamics of South Sudan’s escalating conflict since the ARCSS’s collapse, focusing on the DRC. Finally, it analyses the potential for new peace efforts and the likely trajectory of the conflict in South Sudan against the backdrop of growing unrest in Greater Equatoria and the regional spillover, specifically into the DRC.

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