Mongalla or Mangalla is a Payam in Juba County, Central Equatoria State in South Sudan,[1] on the east side of the Bahr al Jebel or White Nile river.

However, after independence in 1956 the Khartoum government shifted the sugar project to the north, where it is grown under much less favorable conditions with heavy irrigation.

A sugar, clothing, and a weaving factory was established in Mongalla in the 1970s but operations failed to get beyond their trial phase and diminished as conflict grew in the region in the early 1980s.

In April 2006 the President of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, named Mongalla as one of the Nile ports to be the first to be rehabilitated.

After the final defeat of the Caliphate (Khalifa) by the British under General Herbert Kitchener in 1898, the Nile up to the Uganda border became part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

[2] During 1904 posts were established where needed in the Mongalla districts to suppress the activities of "Abyssinian brigands who infested the country".

[4] A party from the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived the same month, but decided it was not suitable for a base and instead located the mission downstream at Bor.

Owen informed Governor General Sir Reginald Wingate that everything would be done for the former president of the United States, but also pointed out that his troops had not even one donkey.

He was impressed by the Egyptian and Sudanese troops, but when visiting a native dance he commented on the lack of middle-aged men, a result of the Mahdist wars that had ended over ten years ago.

[10]The Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries requested that Sunday be retained as a sabbath at Lado, as it had been under the Belgians, rather than changed to Friday as it had in the rest of the Sudan.

[11] Wingate said "...we must remember that the bulk of the inhabitants ... are not Moslems (Muslims) at all, that the whole of Uganda has accepted Christianity almost without a murmur, and that furthermore English is a very much easier language to learn than Arabic...".

[12] In 1913, the government increased restrictions on private travel and immigrants, which meant anybody arriving in Mongalla and wishing to go north from the Uganda or the Belgian Congo could be examined for sleeping sickness by a medical officer.

[11] When Hasan Sharif, son of Khalifa Muhammad Sahif, was exiled to Mongalla in 1915 after taking place in a conspiracy in Omdurman, Governor Owen said "...I told him he is lucky to come and see this part of Sudan for nothing, when tourists pay hundreds of pounds ...

Starting from Benghazi, the plane flew to Aboukir Bay, then up the Nile to Mongalla, which was reached at the end of January, and onward to Entebbe on Lake Victoria.

[25] In 1925 Major G.D. Gould was denied a license to prospect for gold and oil in the east of Mongalla province beyond the Didinga Hills.

A directive issued on 25 January 1930 by the Civil Secretary of Sudan to the governors of Upper Nile, Bahr al-Ghazal and Mongalla said: "The policy of the government in the southern Sudan is to build up series of self-contained racial or tribal units with structures and organization based to whatever extent the requirement of equity and good government permits, upon indigenous customs, traditional usage and beliefs".

Governor-General Sir Stewart Symes at Khartoum had little interest in development of the south of Sudan and he advised the local officials that chiefs should have territorial rather than ethnic authority.

In mid 1981 this harmony broke down when Murle bandits attacked Jieng Bor cattle camps in several locations around Mongalla.

[34] In March 1989 Alternate Commander Jok Reng of the SPLA Mainstream recaptured Mongalla with a relatively small force.

[37] Due to disunity among the southerners, between 1991 and 1994 the NIR was able to recapture many places in South Sudan including Mongalla and also Ayod, Leer, Akobo, Pochalla, Pibor, Waat, Nasir, Kit, Palotaka, Yirol, Bor, Torit, Kapoeta, Parjok and Magwi.

In April 2006 the President of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, named Mongalla as one of the Nile ports to be the first to be rehabilitated.

[44] Mongalla is situated on the east bank of the White Nile in Central Equatoria state at an altitude of 443 metres (1,455 ft).

[48] The Sudd, a vast area of swampland, stretches downriver from Mongalla to near the point where the Sobat River joins the White Nile just upstream from Malakal.

[49] The much smaller Badigeru Swamp lies about 32 km (20 mi) to the east, separated from Mongalla by a region of open grassland.

However, after independence in 1956 the Khartoum government shifted the sugar project to the north, where it is grown under much less favorable conditions with heavy irrigation.

A project funded by Khartoum also established six textile-manufacturing units in Sudan, one at Mongalla, and the other five factories located in the north at Ed Duiem, Kadugli, Kosti, Nyala, and Shendi.

An agreement was made with a Belgian firm, SOBERI, to supply the weaving factory of 256 looms and at one point it was estimated to produce around 9 million meters of grey fabric per annum, but it failed to get past the trial phase due to lack of raw materials, capital, and transportation facilities.