No one wants to insert themselves into the middle of a bloody tribal conflict, but in December 2013, three CV-22 Osprey crews from the 8th SOS were asked to do exactly that during Operation OAKEN SONNET I. South Sudan, a country that had only been in existence for two years since gaining independence following a horrific, 20-year liberation struggle to separate from Sudan, was falling apart again and was embroiled in a new civil war. The troubles in South Sudan had been at a slow roil since independence and the United Nations peacekeeping force in South Sudan was the second largest contingent in the world. In April 2012, five peacekeepers and seven UN civilians were killed, and nine others wounded, when rebels ambushed a UN convoy. South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir an ethnic Dinka, fired his entire cabinet in July 2013, and accused the vicepresident, Riek Machar from the Nuer tribe, of an attempted coup. In early December, rebels opposing the government shot down a UN helicopter near the city of Bor. The spark that finally ignited the civil war happened on 15 Dec 2013, when internecine fighting began within the multi-ethnic Presidential Guard. Within days there was open fighting in the streets of Juba, South Sudan’s capital, roughly along tribal, Dinka versus Nuer, lines. To complicate matters, though, there were also independent armed militias taking advantage of the turmoil to further their own interests. The security situation in Juba was www.aircommando.org
out of control. South Sudanese civilians and international expatriates began to flee the capital, seeking safety in the UN compounds or outside the city. By week’s end, more than 20,000 civilians had crowded into the two tiny UN compounds in Juba. Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese left the cities to take refuge in the bush. Ethnic fighting spread beyond the cities, including a tankon-tank battle in the Jonglei province, the western, oil-rich part of the country. In Bor, 90 miles north of Juba, over 14,000 US, international, and South Sudanese civilians were seeking refuge on the small UN base there. By 19 December, antigovernment, predominantly Nuer, soldiers had taken control of Bor, but the city was surrounded by Dinka-aligned government forces. Atrocities begat reprisal atrocities by both sides, and during the week before Christmas, international aid groups were suggesting that the death toll was already in the tens of thousands. Back in Washington, DC, the US State and Defense Departments were still agonizing over the September 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. During that incident, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and a key member of his staff were killed when Ansar al-Sharia terrorists overran the compound. As a precaution, the US ambassador to South Sudan, Susan Page, began reducing the staff at the embassy in Vol 9, Issue 1 │ AIR COMMANDO JOURNAL │ 35
