RESILIENCE AMIDST CHAOS: SURVIVORS' STORIES OF ETHNIC CONFLICT AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN SOUTH SUDAN

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the link between ethnic conflict and sexual violence in South Sudan's civil war that began in 2013. The paper's focus is on the conflict and the violence perpetuated alongside the conflict, with the aim of analyzing and explaining why ethnicity was the fundamental causal factor of the conflict of South Sudan. The study utilizes the instrumentalist theory of ethnic conflict to examine the role of ethnicity in the conflict. The Dinka and Nuer ethnicities are identified as the most dominant ethnicities in South Sudan, with the existing conflicts mainly emanating from these two groups. In addition, the study highlights that the conflict in South Sudan is characterized by sexual violence and other atrocities such as rape, sexual slavery, sexual torture, and sexual mutilation that primarily target people of ethnic groups different from the warring factions. The study concludes that ethnicity is the primary basis of the conflict and other atrocities committed in South Sudan. To address the conflict, the study recommends that South Sudan should harness its rich national heritage of multi-ethnicity for unity in diversity as opposed to the prevailing parochial barbarity of ethnic conflicts.