Gabriel Tang, who led a militia allied to Khartoum during the Second Sudanese Civil War, clashed regularly with the SPLA until 2011 when his soldiers were reintegrated into the national army.

[75] After rumors about a planned coup surfaced in Juba in late 2012, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir began to reorganize the senior leadership of his government, party, and military at an unprecedented scale.

[85] This policy failed to end the rebellion, but it did cause the breakdown of accepted norms regarding violence on cattle raids and an increase in ethnic tensions between the peoples of southern Sudan.

[85] In 2010, Dennis Blair, the United States' Director of National Intelligence, issued a warning that "over the next five years,...a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan.

Former Minister of Higher Education Peter Adwok said that on the evening 15 December after the meeting of the National Liberation Council had failed, Kiir told Major General Marial Ciennoung to disarm his soldiers of the "Tiger Battalion," which he did.

[78][81][93] On 21 December, the government announced its unconditional readiness to hold peace talks with any rebel group, including Machar[100] In a Christmas message, Kiir warned of the fighting becoming a tribal conflict.

[104] The local Radio Tamazuj suggested UNMISS were absent from the streets in Juba and that president of the UN Security Council Gérard Araud, had announced that the peacekeepers would not intervene in the fighting.

[117] On 21 December a flight of three US Air Force V-22 Osprey aircraft en route to evacuate US nationals from Bor took small arms fire from the ground, injuring four Navy SEALs.

[116] In January 2014, direct negotiations between both sides, as mediated by IGAD, the African Union the United Nations, China, the EU, the USA, the UK and Norway, began.

[177] In February 2015, a largely Murle group, unhappy with the agreement with the government, split off from the Cobra Faction to form the Greater Pibor Forces and declared allegiance to Machar.

[178] In April 2016, Murle fighters in South Sudan crossed over to Gambela in Ethiopia and killed more than 200 people, stole 2,000 cattle and kidnapped more than 100 children from the Nuer tribe.

[190] Some observers felt that the government was holding on to the peace deal to maintain international aid while backing campaigns to increase Dinka control over land and resources traditionally held by other groups.

[202] One clan leader who raised a militia, James Koach, who was nominally loyal to Machar told Martell in 2016: "I don't care what deal they sign in Juba.

[209] About a year after the peace agreement was signed, groups of Dinka youth and the SPLA targeted members of the Fertit in Wau, killing dozens and forcing more than 120,000 to flee their homes.

[210] As result, local Fertit tribal militias and groups allied with the SPLM-IO rose in rebellion, causing heavy clashes in the formerly relatively peaceful Wau State, which continued for months.

[202] In September 2016, Machar called for armed struggle against Kiir[219] and in November, he said SPLM-IO would not participate in a workshop organized by the JMEC, saying that the peace agreement needed to be revised.

[225] With a resolution threatening an arms embargo if it blocked the new deployment, the government accepted the move with conditions such as the troops not being from neighboring countries, claiming they have interests at stake.

[248][249] A counteroffensive by the government starting in late April 2017 reversed most rebel gains,[250] captured the capital of the Shilluk kingdom, Kodok, from Uliny[251] and closed in on Pagak, which had been the SPLA-IO headquarters since 2014.

[61] As part of the "National Dialogue" initiated by Kiir in December 2016 where any former rebels who return to the capital would be given amnesty, about a dozen SPLM-IO officials defected to the government in January 2017.

This led to a series of high ranking resignations, including minister of Labour Lieutenant General Gabriel Duop Lam[262] who also pledged allegiance to Machar.

[269] Around this time, the largely Dinka South Sudan Patriotic Army (SSPA) was formed in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, with the backing of powerful figures such as former presidential advisor Costello Garang Ring[271] and allegedly Malong Awan.

[277] In April of that year, Awan announced the launch of a rebel group named South Sudan United Front (SS-UF), which claimed to push for federalism.

[279] The United States put additional pressure on Juba by successfully passing an arms embargo on South Sudan in July 2018 through the UN Security Council, following their failure to do so in 2016, with Russia and China abstaining from voting this time.

Celebrations in Juba happened on 31 October 2018;[291][292] however, there were criticisms that the peace deal failed to address the underlying issues of the conflict–the concentration of power in the hands of the president–[293] and that the status quo will continue to produce violence.

[294] As part of the agreement, Machar was supposed to return to Juba in May to become a vice president again; citing security concerns, he asked for an extension of six months, which was accepted by Kiir.

[327] Many of the worst atrocities committed were blamed on a group known as "Dot Ke Beny" (Rescue the President) or "Mathiang Anyoor" (brown caterpillar), while the SPLA claim that it is just another battalion.

[341] A UN survey found that 70% of women who were sheltering in camps had been raped since the beginning of the conflict, with the vast majority of rapists being police and soldiers,[342] and that 80% had witnessed someone else getting sexually assaulted.

[344] Martell described the rampant sexual violence as not incidental to the war, but an integral and central part of the strategies of both sides, as "a tool for ethnic cleansing, as a means of humiliation and revenge".

"[349] During the 2016 Juba clashes, 80 to 100 South Sudanese troops entered the Terrain hotel facility and gang raped five international aid workers, with nearby peacekeepers from China refusing to help the victims.

[48] Two Indian UN peacekeepers were killed on 18 December when their base was stormed by rebels, and three US military Osprey aircraft were fired upon leading to four American service personnel being wounded.