Between July and December 2025, gun-related violence in South Sudan was driven primarily by crime
and gangsterism (37.5%), surpassing politically motivated violence (26.0%) and ethnically motivated
incidents (10.6%).
The data indicate a significant shift in the country’s insecurity profile—from large-scale civil war dynamics toward criminalised and social forms of armed violence, particularly in urban and peri-urban settings. Accidental shootings (14.4%) further reflect the widespread and poorly regulated circulation of small arms.
“These findings show that South Sudan is no longer facing violence only from organised armed conflict, but from a dangerous normalisation of gun use in daily life,” Kiden Stela, OCND Executive Director.
This pattern underscores the limits of peace agreements that focus narrowly on elite political settlements.
While political instability remains a major driver of violence, the predominance of criminal gun use highlights the urgent need for community-level security interventions, improved policing, arms control,
and youth-focused livelihood support.
“Without parallel investments in public safety, justice, and livelihoods, South Sudan risks entrenching a cycle of criminalised armed violence that will undermine peace, recovery, and humanitarian access,” Kiden warns.
The violence unfolding in the country should be understood against the backdrop of South Sudan’s protracted conflict cycle (2013–2025) and the erosion of state authority following repeated failures to fully implement peace agreements. While large-scale civil war fronts have fluctuated, the proliferation of small arms, weak policing, and limited judicial accountability has normalised gun use in everyday disputes and criminal activity.
Overall, OCND situates gun violence in South Sudan as multidimensional, where political instability, social fragmentation, criminality, and weak state institutions intersect.
These violent incidents imply that security responses focused only on political peace processes are insufficient without parallel investments in civilian protection, community policing, arms control, and socio-economic recovery.
Read the full report and download it here.