The Kinyeti River flows northward from the

Imatong Mountains The Imatong Mountains (also Immatong, or rarely Matonge) are mainly located in Eastern Equatoria in southeastern South Sudan, and extend into the Northern Region of Uganda. Mount Kinyeti is the highest mountain of the range at , and the highest ...

in the Imatong State of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...

, eventually dispersing into the

Badigeru swamp The Badigeru swamp (or Bedigeru, Badingilu) swamp lies in South Sudan, in the Central Equatoria and Eastern Equatoria states between Terekeka and Lafon. Badigeru is a valley swamp with papyrus along the river and typical grasses for the region ...

Location

The Imatongs reach out from their highest central block around

Mount Kinyeti Mount Kinyeti is the highest peak in South Sudan. It is located in the Imatong Mountains in Ikwoto County of Eastern Equatoria, near the Ugandan border. Kinyeti has an elevation of above sea level. The group of high mountains that contain Kinyeti ...

into a northwestern, western and southwestern chain. The western chain, with peaks rising up to high, is usually known as the Acholi Mountains. The Kinyeti valley lies between the northwest and west ranges. The Kinyeti river, and others that drain the northern slopes of the mountains, feed the Badigeru swamps. These swamps, running in a SSW-NNE direction for , are discontinuous. They may be as wide as in the rainy season, but average in width. The swamps in turn may drain westward into the Bahr el Jebel section of the White Nile or eastward into the Veveno River.

Colonial era

The British colonial administration began a forestry project in the Kinyeti basin in the 1940s, clearing the natural forest and planting fast-growing softwoods, Cyprus and Pine. In 1950 the mountains above were made a forest reserve with no further settlement permitted, but the ban was not enforced during the civil wars. Forestry brought laborers into the mountains, and they started hillside farming in a wide area around the forest plantations. In 1949 fingerling trout supplied by the Kenya Game Department were put out in the upper Kinyeti River. By 1952 they had become established, and the forestry department was planning to stock other streams using trout from the Kinyeti.

Later developments

Shortly before independence, the government announced that the Army's Equatoria Corps was to be transferred to the North, sparking a mutiny on 18 August 1955. 336 northerners died and 75 southerners, of whom 55 drowned in the Kinyeti after they fled in panic from

Torit Torit is a city of Eastern Equatoria State in South Sudan. History On 18 August 1955, the Equatoria Corps mutinied at Torit, starting the First Sudanese Civil War. In 1964 the military government in Khartoum closed "all the Christian mission ...

. Forestry was neglected during the

First Sudanese Civil War The First Sudanese Civil War (also known as the Anyanya Rebellion or Anyanya I, after the name of the rebels, a term in the Madi language which means 'snake venom') was a conflict from 1955 to 1972 between the northern part of Sudan and the sou ...

(1955-1972). After 1972 an effort was made to rehabilitate the plantations, with a new road built from

, a hydro-electric scheme developed to power sawmills and other changes. As of 1984 only the steepest slopes had natural forest and there were plans to clear-cut most of the Kinyeti basin. A 1981 feasibility study assessed hydroelectric power potential in the Kinyeti River and the local power demand, but there was no follow-up. The most promising site seemed to be at Katire.

References

{{Eastern Equatoria Geography of Eastern Equatoria Rivers of South Sudan