Thousands of civilians fled the opposition-held town of Akobo in eastern South Sudan after the army issued an evacuation order ahead of a planned military operation. Local official Nhial Lew said the exodus began on Saturday night and that the town was now almost empty, with women, children and the elderly crossing into Ethiopia as the threat of fighting grew closer.
The order was part of a broader effort by the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces to clear space for an assault on Akobo and surrounding areas. The army told the U.N. Mission in South Sudan to close its base, and nongovernmental groups and civilians were also instructed to leave “in order to avoid unnecessary collateral damage,” according to military spokesperson Lul Ruai Koang. That turned a political and military dispute into an immediate protection crisis for people who had considered Akobo a relatively safe refuge.
Akobo matters because it sits near the Ethiopian border and has long served as a haven for displaced people. More than 82,000 internally displaced people had sought refuge in and around the town, helped in part by a small U.N. peacekeeping presence. The town is also one of the last strongholds of the SPLM-IO, the opposition movement led by detained vice president Riek Machar. With fighting having resumed last year, the 2018 peace deal between Machar and President Salva Kiir has come close to collapsing.
The consequences of the evacuation order were already visible. Two U.N. flights carried away most humanitarian workers, the International Committee of the Red Cross still had staff at its surgical unit in Akobo County Hospital and local health officials said they were worried about patients who might need to be moved but lacked fuel. On Saturday, civilians also protested the ultimatum and marched toward the U.N. base calling for peace and protection.
The scene in Akobo was a reminder of how quickly one security decision can unsettle a place that had been functioning as a last safe stop for displaced families. Once the army began clearing the area, the problem was not just an approaching operation. It was the possible loss of one of the few shelter points left to people already uprooted by years of conflict.
The town’s importance as a refuge made the evacuation order especially destabilizing. When a place that has absorbed tens of thousands of displaced people is itself told to empty out, the effect radiates far beyond the immediate battlefield. Aid workers, doctors and families all have to decide in a very short time whether to move, stay or split up. That is why the shortage of fuel at the hospital mattered so much: it was not just a logistical problem, but a sign that even basic evacuation planning was fragile. Akobo’s fate will now shape how much confidence displaced communities have in any other supposed safe haven nearby.
