South Sudan’s Vice-President Riek Machar has been charged with murder, treason and crimes against humanity over an attack by an ethnic militia on a military base that killed more than 250 soldiers, the justice minister said Thursday (September 10, 2025).
A fragile power-sharing agreement between President Salva Kiir and his first Vice-President Machar has been unravelling for months in the world’s youngest country.
In early March, a militia from Mr. Machar’s ethnic Nuer community known as the White Army attacked a military base in Nasir County, Upper Nile State in the northeast of the country.
The government says Mr. Machar was responsible and has now charged him and 20 others with murder, conspiracy, terrorism, treason, destruction of public property and crimes against humanity.
“These crimes were marked by gross violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, including the desecration of corpses, persecution of civilians, and attacks on humanitarian workers,” Justice Minister Joseph Geng Akech said, according to a read-out provided to reporters in Juba.
