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III. Terror in Bor Town: Unlawful Killings,
Mass Displacement
Some 200 kilometers north of Juba, the largely ethnic Dinka town of Bor was the site of
some of the worst violence against civilians during the first month of the war. The town
changed hands four times in December and January 2013, and fighting and targeted
killings resulted in many hundreds of civilian deaths, according to local officials and UN
estimates. It is not clear exactly how many people were killed during each period of control
or how many people were killed in crossfire. It is however clear that widespread targeting
of civilians took place in the first two weeks of January when Bor town was under the
control of General Peter Gadet’s opposition forces and Nuer armed men moved around the
town killing Dinka civilians, looting and burning homes.
Former SPLA Division 8 commander Gen. Peter Gadet defected on or around December 17,
together with most of his troops. Gadet’s forces, joined by Riek on or before December 20,
for a short period, dominated the town from December 18 until December 25 when they
were pushed out by government forces.
Supported by thousands of armed Nuer white army youth, recruited from Nuer areas north
of Bor, Gadet by all accounts easily reclaimed the town on December 31 after a brief fight
with the government troops. Gadet held the town until the Ugandan People’s Defense
Force (UPDF), supporting the government’s forces, led its recapture it on January 18, 2014.
By the time these forces arrived most of the opposition forces and armed youth had
already left the town. The town has since remained in government control.
Some of the most serious fighting between government and opposition forces during this war
was on the road between Juba and Bor in the first weeks of January, heavier than any fighting in
the town of Bor. 100 Evidence of fresh cluster bomb used either by the government forces or the
UPDF, was found 16 kilometers south of Bor town in February by the UN Mine Action Service. 101
100 The fighting along the Bor-Juba road threatened government’s control of the capital itself. Various media reported on this
fighting, for example, “S. Sudan ex-VP Says Juba Will fall Soon” Sudan Tribune, January 4, 2014,
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49437 (accessed May 15, 2014).
101 Human Rights Watch, press release February 15, 2014. http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/14/south-sudan-investigatenew-cluster-bomb-use.
South Sudan is not a signatory to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions which comprehensively
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