Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Attempted Coup in South Sudan Threatens Israeli Aid Group Operations

Intense fighting amid a coup attempt in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, has forced an Israeli aid group in the country to suspend its operations and go on lockdown.

The heavy gunfire in Juba began late Sunday night; members of the Israeli group, IsraAid, reported artillery and automatic weapons fire in their vicinity.

Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, which became an independent country in July 2011, announced on Monday that he had successfully put down the coup attempt by soldiers loyal to former Deputy President Riek Machar, whom Kiir dismissed over the summer. The president declared a nighttime curfew in Juba.

Ophelie Namiech, IsraAid’s regional director for East and Central Africa, said the group’s operations would be suspended until stability was restored to Juba.

“I have been living in Juba for the past two years. I got to know the people of South Sudan, and their determination to reach peace and stability,” Namiech wrote in an email sent to supporters. “For the first time, I see people being scared for their lives, praying and hoping to find ways of survival.”

IsraAid runs programs in Juba focused on gender, social development and security sector reform. South Sudan and Israel have some defense and trade ties, and many South Sudanese are pro-Israel.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.