Fighting erupts near Yei after SPLA-IO call for advance on Juba

YEI — Fighting erupted on Tuesday morning in Panyume, a small town on South Sudan’s southern border, just a day after a senior opposition commander ordered rebel forces to advance on the national capital, Juba.

Col. Lam Paul Gabriel, spokesman for the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), said the clashes began as opposition forces launched an offensive to seize control of Panyume.

He stated that government troops were retreating south toward Morobo County headquarters, roughly 21 kilometers away.

“Details will follow shortly as the SSPDF are being pursued towards Morobo county HQ,” Lam said in a statement.

Former Rubkona County Commissioner Gatluak Wichar Nyah, a senior SPLM-IO official, claimed the town had fallen to the opposition.

“Panyume [is now] under control of SPLA-IO and [the forces] are advancing toward Morobo and Yei,” he said, suggesting a coordinated northward and southward march.

However, Morobo County Commissioner Charles Data Bullen dismissed the opposition claims that the town had fallen. Speaking to Sudans Post, Bullen insisted government forces were holding their ground.

“We are all getting information from ground. The SSPDF are controlling the garrison of Panyume,” Bullen said. “There is no person who has taken [control] of the garrison. So, they are even repulsing the IO away from the garrison, as I speak now. The SSPDF are on their positions.”

Local civil sources in Morobo told Sudans Post they could hear gunfire to the north, confirming that heavy fighting is underway.

Panyume acts as the administrative headquarters of Panyume Payam in Morobo County, Central Equatoria State.

The town lies about 45 kilometres southeast of Yei and roughly 21 kilometres northeast of Morobo town, placing it along a strategic corridor long viewed as sensitive due to its proximity to Juba.

The violence follows a directive from Lt. Gen. Wisley Welebe Samson, the SPLA-IO deputy chief of staff for operations, who called on opposition forces to prepare for an assault on Juba, framing the capital as the movement’s primary objective.

“We are on a journey now. This journey is not anywhere else except Juba. We are going to Juba,” Welebe said in a video circulated Sunday. “The little things we have, we’ll use them. The one given by God, we’ll use it.”

Welebe used a grim metaphor to describe the operation, warning that “you don’t kill a snake from the tail unless you cut off the head.”

He vowed that opposition forces were on their way and urged other armed groups and disaffected SSPDF elements to join the offensive.

Following the video, Lam issued a warning to residents in the capital, asking them “to help God by vacating imminent military targets.”

The statement has stirred alarm among residents, reviving memories of past battles in the city that caused mass displacement and civilian casualties.

The violence near Yei opens a new front in a security crisis already engulfing the Greater Upper Nile region. In Jonglei State, the security cordon around the state capital, Bor, has tightened following the capture of Pajut by the SPLA-IO.

The loss of the town, situated on a key route to the state capital, signals a growing threat to government control in the area.

This follows days of grinding attrition in neighboring Unity State, where recurrent clashes in Rubkona, and Leer counties have destabilized the region. Upper Nile State also remains on edge, creating a continuous arc of instability across the country’s north.

Analysts say the overlapping conflicts are severely straining the 2018 peace agreement that ended the country’s five-year civil war.

Panyume itself has changed hands before. SPLA-IO forces captured the town during a brief escalation last year but were later dislodged by government troops.

Government officials have repeatedly accused the opposition of undermining the peace deal, while the SPLA-IO says sustained military pressure and political exclusion leave it with few options.