{"id":353907,"date":"2025-08-18T10:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353907\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:08:13","slug":"south-sudans-youth-swept-up-in-gang-culture-and-street-violence-amid-wider-conflict-global-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/353907\/","title":{"rendered":"South Sudan\u2019s youth swept up in gang culture and street violence amid wider conflict | Global development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In June, a video of a gang-rape started circulating online in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/south-sudan\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Sudan<\/a>. Filmed and posted on social media by the perpetrators, it showed a gang of visibly intoxicated young men taking turns to sexually assault a 16-year-old girl in a murky room in the Sherikat neighbourhood of the country\u2019s capital, Juba. Later, it emerged that the victim belonged to a rival gang, and that the rape and the video were an act of revenge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The rape prompted widespread outrage. Some called for mob justice; others for the perpetrators to be apprehended and sentenced to death. There was a city-wide crackdown on gangs and within weeks the authorities announced that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityreviewss.com\/police-dragnet-captures-over-600-suspected-gang-members-in-juba\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more than 600 youths<\/a> had been arrested, although more than half were later released without charge. For former gang members Peter Amule and Alaak Akuei, now on the frontline of trying to stem the flow of gang violence in South Sudan, it was a depressingly familiar, and failed, response to a deeper issue.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Peter Amule, a former gang member, centre, with some of the youths he is trying to help<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cYou can\u2019t stop this gang stuff by force; you need to use love, and to remind them about God,\u201d says Amule, 35.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Akuei, 24, who has set up a football academy in Sherikat, was dismayed by the attack. \u201cI was very disappointed and I felt discouraged because these boys, we are working with them, we know some of them, but they are not listening. But we have to be strong, because we cannot give up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Street gangs have proliferated since South Sudan\u2019s independence in 2011 and the five-year civil war that followed. Thefts of handbags or phones by teenage boys on speeding bodas, the small motorcycles common in east <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/africa\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Africa<\/a>, have become commonplace across the country, especially in Juba, and it is not unusual to see street battles involving knives and machetes between rival crews.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"dcr-zzndwp\"><p>You can\u2019t stop this gang stuff by force; you need to use love<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Peter Amule<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">But families say young people with no criminal links were caught up in the police crackdown, and parents were reported to be unable to locate their children at detention facilities, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eyeradio.org\/activist-demands-police-to-clarify-juba-youth-arrests\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">allegations surfaced of forced conscription<\/a> into the South Sudan People\u2019s Defence Forces, the government army that is at war with rebel forces in parts of the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Since March, fighting has been particularly intense in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/may\/16\/violence-south-sudan-politicians-arrested-bombings\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the north-eastern region of Upper Nile<\/a>, leading to the house arrest of Riek Machar, first vice-president, in Juba. Machar, with President Salva Kiir, was the main signatory of the 2018 peace deal, which the UN says has nearly collapsed.<\/p>\n<p><a data-name=\"placeholder\" href=\"https:\/\/interactive.guim.co.uk\/uploader\/embed\/2025\/08\/south_sudan\/giv-325548TWyWCfRIKb5\/\" class=\"dcr-1eupayo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A map of South Sudan<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">During a plenary session of the national parliament on 28 July, Samuel Buhari Loti, an MP from Eastern Equatoria state, expressed alarm that the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiotamazuj.org\/en\/news\/article\/juba-crackdown-arrested-youth-forcibly-conscripted\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">so-called crackdown \u2026 has gone beyond gangs<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cNow, our young people are being harassed, arrested, and some even killed. Many are disappearing \u2026 and later appear in Malakal [capital of Upper Nile] as soldiers,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is deeply troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Edmund Yakani, executive director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (Cepo), a leading South Sudanese civil society organisation, says he has been contacted by numerous families looking for their sons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cInformation is coming out that some of them are children and have died in the army barracks in Malakal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">On 1 August, Machar\u2019s opposition movement, the Sudan People\u2019s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLA-IO), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share\/v\/1BoMfdghNT\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released a video<\/a> of teenagers addressing the camera in various South Sudanese languages. Filmed at an undisclosed location controlled by the opposition in Nyirol county, in the north of Jonglei state, the boys describe how they were taken from Juba to Malakal after being arrested and put in jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In a message accompanying the video, a SPLA-IO spokesperson, Lam Paul Gabriel, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross, the UN children\u2019s fund Unicef and the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) \u201cto help reunite these young boys with their families in Juba\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Authorities have publicly denied the allegations and did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In Juba\u2019s Gudele neighbourhood, the yard of Amule\u2019s home has become a meeting point for teenagers and social workers from <a href=\"https:\/\/gredoea.org\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grassroots Empowerment and Development Organization<\/a> (Gredo), an NGO supported by Unicef.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Peter Amule, a former gang member who now tries to help youths break free of gangs, with pigeons he raises behind his house in Gudele<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A dozen boys aged 15 to 20 sit in the shade of a small mango tree. All ended up in gangs due to similar circumstances: a lack of money led them to drop out of school and join a gang to start stealing. Once they were part of a gang, fear for their own safety and involvement in violence make it very difficult to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cFor you to leave a gang, there are conditions,\u201d Amule explains. He left in 2016, after 14 years of gang life. \u201cIn my case, I had to buy [the leader] a motorcycle so they could set me free.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cYou take a lot of drugs, and when you do so, you won\u2019t even care about your own mother, because these drugs mess up your mind. You have no limits.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Sakaya Peter, a youth worker at Gredo, says: \u2018Most of these children come from traumatised families\u2019<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Sherikat, the Juba suburb where the girl was raped, is divided into two territories controlled by two main gangs: Hip Hop Riders and West Coast. In 2021 Gredo opened a youth centre on the border between the two areas. Today, it has about 150 members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Decades of war have taken a heavy toll on South Sudanese families, says Gredo\u2019s Sakaya Peter. \u201cMost of these children come from traumatised families. Their fathers are soldiers, and they\u2019re either dead or absent because they\u2019re deployed far away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cSome have already run away and are living on the street. Others are experiencing a lot of abuse at home, so they come here to find people they can speak to,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Recruiting former street children, ex-gang members or survivors of sexual violence to work with young people is key to the centre\u2019s approach. \u201cThe most important part is the emotional connection they establish with the youths, which allows for change to take place,\u201d says Peter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Akuei, known as Kuku, joined a gang when he was 13. \u201cIn the gang, we had different activities, but for me I was a fighter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt was like a war, but we couldn\u2019t really tell why we were fighting the other groups.\u201d In 2018, at 18, he was able to pay off the leaders and he set up the Young Dream Football Academy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Alaak \u2018Kuku\u2019 Akuei is a 24-year-old former gang member who founded the Young Dream Football Academy in Sherikat. \u2018These kids, all they want is to feel loved and that they belong,\u2019 he says<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Today, Akuei trains more than 900 children, and has recruited other ex-gang members to coach them. \u201cWe need to engage them so that they\u2019ll be busy and they focus on education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThese kids, all they want is to feel loved, and to feel that they belong. Football can give them that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"> All photographs by Florence Miettaux<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In June, a video of a gang-rape started circulating online in South Sudan. Filmed and posted on social&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-353907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115049221614988412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}