SSPDF RESPONSE TO CUSTOMS ROUNDABOUT SHOOTING: INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY

The SSPDF Spokesperson Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang posted a statement on his official page on Friday, calling for calm following the shooting at the Customs Roundabout in the early morning hours. He confirmed that authorities were working to ascertain the precise circumstances of the incident and urged the public to remain patient. In a pointed secondary message, he warned civil society organisations against speaking on behalf of the national army a warning that itself signals how quickly unofficial narratives had already begun to circulate. "The SSPDF command urges members of the public to remain calm as the concerned authorities ascertain the circumstances under which gunshots rang out in Customs roundabouts," he stated. "On the same note, the army urges individuals from civil society organisations to desist from speaking on behalf of the national army."

The shooting rapidly became more than a local security incident. Reports circulated widely on social media claiming the gunfire was an assassination attempt on Dr. Riek Machar  the suspended First Vice President of South Sudan, who is currently on trial at Freedom Hall on charges of murder, treason and crimes against humanity stemming from events in Nasir in March 2025. Those claims spread rapidly in a country where political assassinations have been a feature of its troubled history and where tensions between President Salva Kiir's government and Machar's SPLM-IO movement are at their most dangerous point since the 2018 Revitalised Agreement.

Those claims were firmly countered by civil society. Edmond Yakani, Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO), clarified that the Friday morning shooting was an isolated dispute between two soldiers and had no connection whatsoever to the ongoing trial. He was specific about geography: the shooting took place at the entrance of the Dr. John Garang Mausoleum, near the Customs Roundabout approximately 400 metres from Freedom Hall where the trial was being conducted. "It is a big distance," Yakani explained. "Some people have crafted this information that the shooting was at the gate of Freedom Hall. This is not true." He appealed to the public to remain calm and to avoid spreading misinformation at a moment of deep national tension, acknowledging "bitterness" and serious political disagreements but urging factual restraint.

The broader context in which this shooting occurred is critical to understanding why it generated such alarm. Dr. Machar, 73, has been under house arrest since March 2025. He and seven co-defendants including senior SPLM-IO military and political figures face charges of murder, conspiracy, terrorism, treason, destruction of public property and crimes against humanity.

 The charges stem from allegations that Machar orchestrated an attack by SPLA-IO forces allied with the White Army militia on the Nasir military garrison in March 2025, which prosecutors allege killed 257 SSPDF soldiers. Machar's defence team has described the charges as a political witch-hunt, and the trial has been widely characterised internationally as a sign of the unravelling of the 2018 peace agreement. The trial's 65th session had been held on Thursday, April 9 the day before the shooting with the judge adjourning proceedings to Friday, April 10.

The shooting at Customs Roundabout also arrives against a backdrop of escalating violence across the South Sudanese capital that predates the current political crisis. Juba has experienced a series of nighttime shooting incidents attributed to armed gangs, security checkpoint confrontations, and incidents involving rogue security personnel. In the most serious recent unrelated security event, a massive attack on a gold mining site at Khor Galtan in Central Equatoria State in late March 2026 by a combined SPLA-IO and National Salvation Front force killed 36 people  a figure itself revised down from initial reports of 73. The SSPDF pursued and neutralised the attacking force, killing eight fighters including their commander.

South Sudan's security environment more broadly has continued to deteriorate in 2026 at a scale not seen since the 2018 peace deal was signed. According to the United Nations Security Council, direct military confrontations have been reported in eight of the country's ten states, and fighting between the SSPDF and SPLA-IO in Jonglei State alone has displaced more than 280,000 civilians since late December 2025. Over 160 civilians have been reported killed in the Jonglei conflict, and OCHA has documented widespread humanitarian disruption including the looting of hospital facilities. UNMISS, whose mandate expires on April 30, 2026, has repeatedly condemned attacks on peacekeepers and urged all parties to protect civilians.

On the political front, the situation is no less fragile. President Kiir has progressively stripped senior SPLM-IO figures from governmental and legislative positions, replacing them with loyalists or members of an SPLM-IO splinter faction.

The trial of Machar and his co-defendants has been widely interpreted internationally including by the International Crisis Group and the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan  as a mechanism for removing Machar from politics permanently under the guise of legal process, rather than a genuine exercise in accountability. These assessments reflect a broad concern that the 2018 peace framework is no longer functional and that South Sudan is sliding toward renewed conflict.

Friday's shooting at Customs Roundabout will be resolved  or explained away in the coming hours or days. But it arrives as a symptom of a country under enormous strain, where a single unexplained shot can trigger fears of assassination plots, where civil society must rush to calm a public conditioned by decades of political violence, and where the distance between routine security incident and political catastrophe has never felt shorter.