National Salvation Front (South Sudan)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| National Salvation Front | |
|---|---|
 The flag of the National Salvation Front | |
| Founder | Thomas Cirillo Swaka |
| Leaders | Thomas Cirillo Swaka |
| Spokesperson | Suba Samuel Manese |
| Dates of operation | 6 March 2017 – present |
| Split from | - |
| Split to | NAS-KB ENAF DRM |
| Active regions | Equatoria |
| Ideology | Federalism |
| Size | - |
| Part of | SSOMA |
| Allies | SSNMC |
| Opponents |  SSPDF |
| Wars | the South Sudanese Civil War and the Ethnic violence in South Sudan |
| Website | https://www.nassouthsudan.com |
The National Salvation Front (NAS) is a South Sudanese militant group led by Thomas Cirillo which has been fighting against the government of South Sudan since March 2017.[1][2]
The group is the largest still fighting after the end of the South Sudanese Civil War. NAS mainly operates in the Equatoria region of South Sudan. Its goals are the removal of the President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, from office and the establishment of federalism.
On November 25, 2017, Major Gen. Lawrence Amitayo Legge, the Operations Commander for the SPLM-IO Western Mundri Command announced his resignation of the SPLM-IO army with his officers to join NAS under the leader of Gen. Thomas Cirillo.[citation needed]
NAS was not a party to the Revitalized Agreement in South Sudan and thus continues to engage in fighting despite the ceasefire mostly holding in the rest of the country.[2][3] There was, however, a minor faction of NAS that split from Cirillo's forces and signed the Agreement.[4]
On 2 February 2019 NAS soldiers claimed to have repulsed SSPDF from Senema village near border with Democratic Republic of Congo.[5]
Etymology
History
The National Salvation Front was founded on March 6, 2017, by Lt. Gen. Thomas Cirillo Swaka, a member of the Bari ethnic group. Cirillo had been the Deputy Chief of Staff of Logistics for the army of South Sudan, the SPLA, but he resigned on February 11, 2017, in response to what he believed was the "tribalization" of the army under the leadership of president Salva Kiir.[7] On March 9, 2017, the SSDM-Cobra Faction under Khalid Butrous merged with NAS.[8] On March 1, 2018, NAS joined the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), a coalition of rebel groups that opposed the government.
On August 5, 2018, Julius Tabule Daniel declared himself the interim chairman of NAS.[9] This led to a split in the movement, and Tabule's group declared Khalid Butrous as its leader, becoming known as NAS-KB.[10] NAS-KB signed the R-ARCSS peace deal in September 2018, while the main NAS group under Cirillo continued to fight. Another group called the Equatoria Non-Allied Forces (ENAF) led by Moses Yanga Yoana allegedly broke away from NAS; it signed a peace deal with the government in February 2019.[11] On October 23, 2020, Lako Jada Kwajok, a senior NAS official, resigned, citing weak leadership and the lack of a clear vision.[12] He created the Democratic Resistance Movement (DRM) on November 30, 2020, made of former NAS members.[13][14]
On September 24, 2018, NAS and members of the SSOA that did not sign the R-ARCSS formed the South Sudan National Democratic Alliance (SSNDA), led by Cirillo.[15] Between December 2018 and March 2019, major clashes between the SSPDF (the South Sudanese army) and NAS in Yei River State displaced around 15,000 people.[16] On August 30, 2019, the SSNDA merged with several other rebel groups to form the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA). The SSOMA entered into negotiations in Rome facilitated by the Community of Sant'Egidio, and it signed a Cessation of Hostilities agreement on January 12, 2020.[17] While this declaration initially reduced the violence, NAS and the SSPDF resumed clashes in the summer of 2020.