Rumbek is counting its dead. On Friday 9 October 2026, intercommunal violence killed about 71 people, four soldiers among them, in this central South Sudanese town, the capital of Lakes State. The figure comes from initial security reports cited by the interim government’s Ministry of Information, which adds that the exact number of dead and injured has yet to be verified.
It all began the day before, a few kilometres away. On Thursday, fighting between armed youths from the Nyang and Pakam communities broke out in Nyangkot village, on the outskirts of Rumbek Central County, leaving at least four dead according to the Sudans Post. The clashes then spread into the town itself.
Witnesses interviewed by AFP describe a group from outside Rumbek that tried to take control of the town and briefly succeeded. Several of them attribute the flare-up to ethnic and community rivalries, a recurring feature of the region.
Given the scale of the fighting, Juba deployed a joint force drawn from the army, the National Security Service and the police. Authorities now say the town is under the control of government forces and that work is under way to restore normal life, with the protection of civilians and their property as the priority.
The government strongly condemned the violence. In its statement, it urges all communities to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from reprisals that could inflame tensions further. Fear of a cycle of revenge is far from theoretical in Lakes State, where cattle raids and feuds between clans regularly bring bloodshed to rural areas.
The tragedy comes at a delicate moment for the world’s youngest country, independent from Sudan since 2011. The power-sharing arrangement born of the 2018 peace deal was recently ended by decree. That agreement had halted five years of civil war that cost about 400,000 lives. Intercommunal conflict has never stopped across the country since, and the toll in Rumbek is a reminder of how fragile state authority remains there.