UNMISS Patrol Ambushed in Jonglei, Killing Two Ethiopian Peacekeepers

25 August 2026 | Jonglei State, South Sudan
(Ethiopian peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). File photo: UNMISS.

Two Ethiopian peacekeepers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) were killed on 24 August when a UN patrol was ambushed while travelling towards Pajut in Duk County, Jonglei State.

Seven other people were injured, including three Ethiopian peacekeepers, two South Sudan National Police Service personnel and two UN civilian staff.

The attack has drawn condemnation from UNMISS, the United States, United Kingdom and European diplomatic missions in Juba, as well as South Sudanese civil society. It comes less than a week after the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator warned of the growing risks facing humanitarian personnel and operations across South Sudan.

What happened?

The UNMISS patrol was travelling from Bor towards Pajut when it came under attack by unidentified armed individuals.

Information available following the incident placed the attack in the Ajoh-Lou area of Jalle Payam, along the route north from Bor towards Duk County.

Following the attack, UNMISS deployed a Quick Reaction Force to secure the area and support the emergency response. Three casualties were evacuated to the Level II Hospital in Juba and four to the Level II Hospital in Bor for medical treatment. One peacekeeper and one international civilian staff member were subsequently transferred from Juba to Entebbe.

UNMISS confirmed that two peacekeepers were killed and seven people wounded. The two peacekeepers killed, along with the three injured peacekeepers, were Ethiopian.

At the time of writing, responsibility for the attack has not been established. UNMISS has described those responsible as unidentified armed individuals

UNMISS condemns the attack

Anita Kiki Gbeho, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of UNMISS, strongly condemned the ambush, describing deadly violence against personnel serving in support of peace in South Sudan as unacceptable.

Gbeho expressed condolences to the families and loved ones of the peacekeepers killed and called on the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough and prompt investigation to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.

UNMISS also recalled that attacks against United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law, including international humanitarian law.

The deaths are significant for a Mission whose personnel routinely travel considerable distances across South Sudan, including through remote areas where road conditions, communications and localised insecurity can make movement difficult.

International reaction

The killing of the two Ethiopian peacekeepers prompted a series of statements from diplomatic missions in Juba.

The U.S. Embassy in Juba strongly condemned the attack, expressed condolences to the families of those killed and called for a full and transparent investigation. It also raised concern over continuing intercommunal and armed violence in Jonglei State and called on political and community leaders to act to prevent further violence.

The British Embassy in Juba separately condemned the attack and reaffirmed the UK's support for UNMISS, paying tribute to UN personnel serving in South Sudan. It called for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable.

On 25 August, the European Union Delegation to South Sudan and the Embassies of Germany, France and the Netherlands issued a joint statement condemning the attack.

The European missions highlighted the role played by UN peacekeepers in protecting civilians, supporting peace and stability, facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance and monitoring human rights. They also called for a full and transparent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable.

Their statement placed the attack within the wider impact of violence in South Sudan, particularly in Jonglei, and referred to the growing number of humanitarian personnel killed in the country during 2026.

The EU, Germany, France and the Netherlands also called on South Sudan's leaders to engage in dialogue in support of the peace process and to prevent further violence.

South Sudanese civil society joins calls for action

The response has not been limited to international partners.

On 25 August, South Sudan's National Civil Society Coalition condemned the ambush and expressed condolences to the families of those killed and those injured.

The Coalition called for improved security for travellers, residents and humanitarian organisations at the sub-national level, as well as a prompt investigation into the attack and for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Its statement reflects a wider concern familiar to many people travelling outside South Sudan's principal towns: conditions can change considerably between urban centres and the roads connecting them.

Why the attack matters

Ambushes and other security incidents on roads in Jonglei are not new. Routes connecting Bor with communities further north have experienced a number of incidents, and UN road movements have also been targeted previously.

In February 2024, armed men attacked a humanitarian convoy under UNMISS protection approximately 60 kilometres from Bor. A UNMISS vehicle was damaged, but there were no casualties. UNMISS personnel have also faced other attacks and ambushes during road movements elsewhere in Jonglei.

What distinguishes the 24 August attack is its outcome.

Fatal attacks against UN peacekeepers remain relatively rare in South Sudan. The killing of two Ethiopian peacekeepers therefore represents a serious incident for UNMISS and highlights the risks faced during movements through remote areas where armed actors may be present.

It is also important to distinguish insecurity along particular road corridors from conditions across Jonglei as a whole.

Bor remains an important state capital and operational and commercial centre. The security picture outside the town, however, can differ considerably between routes and locations. This distinction is particularly important in Jonglei, where distances are considerable and communities, humanitarian operations and commercial activity rely heavily on a limited number of transport corridors.

The attack therefore draws attention to a longstanding challenge in South Sudan: maintaining safe and reliable movement between population centres across a vast country where road infrastructure is limited and localised insecurity can quickly affect access.

A wider concern around humanitarian access

The timing of the attack is particularly notable.

Just five days earlier, on World Humanitarian Day, 19 August, South Sudan's Humanitarian Coordinator, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, highlighted the increasing risks faced by humanitarian personnel in the country.

According to the UN, 36 humanitarian staff and contractors have been killed in the line of duty in South Sudan since January 2026, already surpassing the 31 killed throughout 2025. The majority of those killed were South Sudanese nationals.

More than 450 incidents of violence affecting humanitarian workers and assets were recorded between January and July 2026, more than double the number recorded during the same period in 2025.

The Humanitarian Coordinator called for humanitarian personnel, civilians and assets to be protected, attacks to be investigated and those responsible held accountable. He also stressed the importance of safe, sustained and principled humanitarian access to communities in need.

The same figures were referenced by the EU, Germany, France and the Netherlands in their joint response to the UNMISS attack on 25 August.

The ambush on the UNMISS patrol is separate from those humanitarian incidents. Peacekeepers are not humanitarian workers and UNMISS operates under a distinct mandate. But both point to a common challenge: ensuring that people working across South Sudan can move safely and reach communities beyond the country's main towns.

For South Sudan, where geography, seasonal conditions and limited infrastructure already make access difficult, insecurity on key roads can have consequences far beyond the location of an individual incident.

The deaths of two Ethiopian peacekeepers on 24 August have therefore attracted attention not only because UN personnel were killed, but because the attack comes amid a broader concern over the security of road movement, humanitarian access and those working to support communities across the countr

As South Sudan’s Aid Sector Shrinks, Where Does the Risk Go?

Funding cuts are changing the way humanitarian organisations operate across South Sudan. Smaller teams, fewer field offices and greater reliance on national partners and service providers may be unavoidable. But reducing expenditure does not necessarily reduce operational risk. In some cases, it simply moves it elsewhere.

South Sudan’s humanitarian sector is entering a very different operating environment. Funding reductions are forcing organisations to cut programmes, reduce staff, consolidate field offices and look again at the costs of transport, aviation, logistics, security and other operational support.

The financial pressure is clear. The more difficult question is what happens to the programmes that remain.

A recent paper from the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility (CSRF) in South Sudan and the Conflict Sensitivity Facility (CSF) in Sudan describes a humanitarian system at a turning point. Its argument is broader than funding alone. Withdrawal, downsizing and reprioritisation are not neutral administrative decisions. They can affect local relationships, institutional capacity and the environments in which humanitarian organisations operate.

https://csrf-southsudan.org/repository/csrf-csf-learning-paper-the-humanitarian-system-at-a-turning-point-lessons-from-sudan-and-south-sudan/

The paper is primarily concerned with the wider conflict-sensitivity implications of this transition. But its findings also raise practical questions for those responsible for programmes, operations, security, procurement and duty of care.

If organisations continue to deliver in difficult locations while reducing the infrastructure around those programmes, where does the risk go?

Protecting the programme

There is understandable pressure to protect frontline delivery. If funding remains available for a project in a remote part of South Sudan, organisations will want to use it. Communities still need support, donors expect delivery and organisations are understandably reluctant to withdraw from places where they have spent years building programmes and relationships.

But a programme does not operate in isolation. Behind it sits a less visible structure that allows people to deliver it: experienced staff, assessments, vehicles, communications, security management, journey planning, medical arrangements, logistics and contingency procedures.

As budgets tighten, those costs can become increasingly difficult to protect. A field office closes. A dedicated vehicle becomes a contracted one. Security responsibilities are regionalised. Assessment visits become less frequent. Decisions previously made by people living and working in an area are increasingly made remotely.

None of these decisions is necessarily wrong. Many will be unavoidable. But taken together they create a different operating model, and the assumptions underpinning the previous one may no longer apply.

Less presence, less information

The CSRF/CSF paper identifies a related concern: the erosion of context-specific knowledge. It warns that the loss of experienced national staff can lead to more standardised responses, less nuanced engagement and a greater likelihood of harm.

That has particular relevance in South Sudan, where conditions can differ considerably between states, counties and individual routes. Knowledge accumulated over years matters. Experienced national staff often carry an institutional understanding of communities, authorities, previous incidents, seasonal conditions and local relationships that cannot easily be replaced.

When field offices close and experienced personnel leave, organisations do not only lose infrastructure. They can lose institutional memory with it.

There is a paradox here. As organisations reduce their physical presence, reliable local information arguably becomes more important, not less. Decisions may increasingly be made from Juba or regional headquarters about places where the organisation has fewer people and less direct visibility.

The paper also notes that reductions in subnational infrastructure, including field offices and aviation routes, can weaken monitoring and have wider consequences for local protection arrangements and access.

Where does the risk go?

One of the less visible consequences of humanitarian contraction is risk transfer.

Closing a field office does not remove the risks associated with operating in that location. Outsourcing transport does not remove road risk. Moving implementation to a national partner does not remove the risks associated with delivering the programme.

What changes is who carries them.

The CSRF/CSF paper notes that local entities are already carrying increased burdens relating to risk, information and delivery as international support contracts. It also cautions against placing unrealistic expectations and overwhelming burdens on local actors while wider structural constraints remain.

That distinction will become increasingly important as localisation accelerates.

National NGOs may be ready to take on programmes in locations where international organisations are reducing their presence. South Sudanese companies may be able to provide vehicles, personnel, logistics, security or technical support without the overheads associated with maintaining the same capability internally.

There is considerable opportunity in that transition. But transferring responsibility without transferring the resources and capability required to manage it is something different.

Localisation should not simply mean localising risk.

Duty of care still applies

This also raises questions about duty of care.

A smaller project budget does not make the road safer. A national member of staff travelling to a field location does not require a lower standard of planning because an international colleague is no longer making the journey. A partner organisation's willingness to deliver in a difficult location does not, by itself, establish that the risks have been properly assessed.

As operating models change, some fairly basic questions therefore remain important. When was the location or route last assessed? Who is monitoring the movement? What communications are available? What happens if a vehicle breaks down or a route becomes inaccessible? Is there a realistic medical or evacuation plan? Who has responsibility for responding to an incident?

More importantly, has somebody with the appropriate information and authority actually determined that the residual risk is acceptable?

These are not arguments for preserving every security structure or operating procedure that existed when funding was more plentiful. They are arguments for ensuring that safeguards built into the old operating model are deliberately considered when designing the new one.

Keeping efficiency from becoming a shortcut

There is nothing inherently wrong with finding cheaper ways to operate. In the current funding environment, organisations have little choice but to examine costs closely, and some established operating models may genuinely be unnecessarily expensive.

The distinction is between removing cost and removing capability.

A cheaper vehicle may be entirely suitable. A local provider may be able to deliver a service much more efficiently than an international organisation can maintain it internally. Shared infrastructure and national capacity can produce genuine savings.

But significant differences in price can also reflect differences that are less immediately visible: vehicle maintenance, insurance, driver training, tracking, communications, staff salaries and welfare, supervision, management systems, emergency response and the ability to provide a replacement when something goes wrong.

The same applies across operational services. Two quotations may appear to describe the same service while the infrastructure sitting behind them is entirely different.

This is why the principle that “you get what you pay for” still has relevance, particularly in difficult operating environments. Cheap does not automatically mean poor, just as expensive does not automatically mean good. But when a price is substantially lower, organisations should understand why.

Procurement is part of risk management

As organisations rely more heavily on partners, contractors and national service providers, good procurement becomes more important, not less.

Price will inevitably matter. But procurement also needs to establish what sits behind the price.

That means looking beyond the quotation to the provider itself: its management systems, financial and operational capacity, staff training, insurance, equipment maintenance, health and safety arrangements, incident reporting, safeguarding and ability to respond when circumstances change.

For security providers, there are additional considerations around human rights, recruitment and vetting, training, supervision, use-of-force procedures and incident management.

This is where proper due diligence, contractual oversight and independently audited standards become particularly valuable. Certification does not remove risk, and it should never replace an organisation’s own assessment of a supplier. But credible independent auditing can provide evidence that the systems described during a tender exist beyond the proposal document.

Oversight should also continue after the contract is awarded. A strong tender response tells an organisation what a provider says it can do. Contract management and auditing establish whether those standards continue to be delivered in practice.

A quotation establishes the price. Good procurement establishes what sits behind it.

Localisation should build capability

None of this is an argument against localisation. In fact, the current transition could provide an opportunity to do localisation better.

The CSRF/CSF paper argues that supporting local agency requires more than simply moving funding closer to local actors. It requires recognising the systems, relationships and capacities that already exist rather than treating national organisations as subcontractors within externally driven programmes.

There is a similar conversation to be had about South Sudan’s private sector.

National organisations can retain personnel, vehicles, technical expertise, communications and operational knowledge in locations where individual international organisations may no longer be able to justify permanent infrastructure. That capacity can remain in the country between projects rather than being repeatedly built up and dismantled according to international funding cycles.

But sustainable localisation requires investment in standards as well as contracts. If national organisations are expected to assume greater responsibility, they also need the resources and commercial space to recruit properly, train people, maintain equipment, build management systems and protect their staff.

Driving prices continually down while simultaneously expecting increasingly sophisticated compliance and international standards is unlikely to build sustainable national capacity. At some point, something has to give.

A different model

The humanitarian sector in South Sudan will have to operate differently. Large permanent structures may no longer be financially sustainable, and organisations will continue looking for more flexible ways to maintain access and deliver programmes.

That does not necessarily have to be a negative development.

Vehicles can be contracted when required rather than permanently maintained. Assessments can be commissioned before deployments. Movements can be monitored centrally. Specialist expertise can be brought in when needed. National organisations and private-sector providers can maintain capabilities that individual international organisations no longer need permanently in-house.

Done properly, this could produce a leaner and more locally rooted operating model.

But there is a danger that, in trying to protect frontline programmes, organisations gradually dismantle the operational infrastructure that makes frontline delivery possible.

The CSRF/CSF paper warns against what it describes as “contraction without transformation”: reducing the existing system without sufficiently reconsidering how it needs to work.

That may be one of the most important questions facing organisations operating in South Sudan today.

The question is no longer simply whether there is enough funding to deliver a programme. It is whether there is enough operational capacity around that programme to deliver it responsibly — and, where that capacity now sits with partners and providers, whether organisations have done enough to understand and oversee what they are buying.

As the sector gets smaller, the risk does not disappear. The challenge is ensuring that responsibility, resources and oversight move with it.

Download the full paper here: https://csrf-southsudan.org/repository/csrf-csf-learning-paper-the-humanitarian-system-at-a-turning-point-lessons-from-sudan-and-south-sudan/

Bentiu Security Update: UNMISS Strengthens Patrols Following 19 August Incident

21 August 2026 | Bentiu, Unity State, South Sudan

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has increased peacekeeping patrols in and around the Bentiu IDP camp in Unity State following an incident on 19 August that resulted in deaths and injuries among civilians and security personnel.

Archer International issued an initial security and safety notification for Bentiu to clients on the evening of 19 August, advising personnel to avoid the affected area while the situation remained unsettled.

According to UNMISS, the incident followed the arrest of a spiritual leader and resulted in heightened tensions and violence involving security personnel and civilians. UNMISS reported on 21 August that five people had died and 33 others had been injured.

What has UNMISS said about the Bentiu incident?

Anita Kiki Gbeho, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of UNMISS, called for dialogue and de-escalation following the incident.

“I urge all those with influence to prioritize dialogue and step back from confrontation,” Gbeho said.

UNMISS said it is engaging with community leaders, state authorities, security actors and youth representatives to reduce tensions. The Mission has also said it will maintain an enhanced protective presence in and around the Bentiu IDP camp while efforts to restore calm continue.

What does the incident mean for organisations operating in Bentiu?

Organisations with personnel, programmes or operations in Bentiu should maintain situational awareness, follow guidance from the relevant authorities and review movements around affected areas where appropriate.

The incident demonstrates how quickly localised events can affect movement and operational conditions in South Sudan. Maintaining current information, reliable communications and appropriate journey management arrangements can help organisations respond to changing conditions while continuing their activities safely.

Security and Operational Support in South Sudan

Archer International provides security and operational support to organisations working across South Sudan, including Bentiu and wider Unity State.

Services include security information and alerts, journey management, secure transport, risk assessments, security personnel, tracking and operational support for organisations working in complex and remote environments.

Through its 24/7 Juba Control Room and operational teams across South Sudan, Archer supports NGOs, international organisations, diplomatic missions and businesses with practical security solutions designed for the South Sudan operating environment.