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Uganda has deployed special forces to South Sudan’s capital, Juba, to help secure the city, Uganda’s military chief, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has announced.
The move comes as tensions between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar continue to escalate, raising fears that their fragile peace deal could collapse and plunge the country back into conflict.
Gen Kainerugaba did not specify the reason for the deployment but warned that any move against Kiir would be considered a declaration of war against Uganda.
“We shall protect the entire territory of South Sudan like it was our own,” he wrote on X.
South Sudan’s government has yet to comment on the deployment.
Concerns over the country’s security situation have been growing. On Saturday, the US ordered the evacuation of all its non-emergency staff from South Sudan due to the worsening crisis.
Tensions escalated last week when security forces arrested the deputy chief of the army and two ministers allied with Machar. Opposition leaders condemned the arrests as a “grave violation” of the peace deal, though one minister has since been released.
The arrests followed clashes in Upper Nile state between government forces and the White Army, a militia that fought alongside Machar during South Sudan’s civil war.
The civil war erupted in 2013, after a power struggle between Kiir and Machar, leading to heavy fighting in Juba and accusations of a coup attempt. The conflict claimed more than 400,000 lives.
A 2018 power-sharing agreement ended the fighting, but key provisions—including a new constitution, elections, and the integration of armed groups into a single national army—remain unimplemented, fueling ongoing instability.
