Nasir () is a city in the Nasir County of Upper Nile State, in the

Greater Upper Nile The Greater Upper Nile () is a region of northeastern South Sudan. It is named for the White Nile (it is its lowest portion in South Sudan), a tributary of the Nile River in North Africa, North and East Africa, East Africa. History The Greater ...

region of

South Sudan South Sudan (), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the north by Sudan; on the east by Ethiopia; on the south by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya; and on the ...

. The city is on the north side of the Sobat River, about from the Ethiopian border. It is the administrative center of Nasir County.

History

Early days

Charles W. Gwynn passed through this town while he was reconnoitering the

Ethiopia–Sudan border The Ethiopia–Sudan border (; ) is a disputed border between the Ethiopia, Federal Republic of Ethiopia and the Sudan, Republic of the Sudan since the 19th century.Ullendorff, Edward. "The Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902." ''Bulletin of the Scho ...

in March 1900. There he found "a young

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian officer in charge of a small Government post, but he apparently had had no communications with anyone since the river Sobat had fallen, and was anxiously awaiting its rise in hopes of a steamer to replenish his stores."Gwynn
"The Frontiers of Abyssinia: A Retrospect", ''Journal of the Royal African Society''
36 (1937), p. 157 The local airstrip is reputed to have been built by the RAF in the 1930s as a point en route from Khartoum to Nairobi. It was used as a fuel stop for RAF aircraft operations in North and East Africa. Nasir

Civil war

SPLA-Nasir, a splinter faction of the

Sudan People's Liberation Army The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the military force of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a key parti ...

active from 1991 to 1994, derived their name from the town because it was their base. In 1991 local rebel leader Riek Machar used Nasir as his base of operations. There he met Emma McCune, a British aid worker who he later married. She died in Nairobi in November 1993 in a traffic accident. In May 1991 large numbers of refugees fleeing the civil war in Ethiopia descended on Nasir, swelling the local population from a few hundred to tens of thousands. UN Operation Lifeline Sudan subsequently used Nasir as a major distribution point for WFP food distributions and UNICEF operations. These included rinderpest vaccinations of the local cattle population, meningitis vaccination programs, seed and tool inputs as well as emergency feeding programs.

Post Independence

In the aftermath of the

South Sudanese Civil War The South Sudanese Civil War was a multi-sided civil war in South Sudan fought from 2013 to 2020, between forces of the government and opposition forces. The civil war caused rampant human rights abuses, including forced displacement, ethnic mas ...

, Nasir was the site of several clashes between the

South Sudan People's Defence Forces The South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF), formerly the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the military force of South Sudan. The SPLA was founded as a guerrilla movement against the government of Sudan in 1983 and was a key parti ...

and the

Nuer White Army The Nuer White Army, sometimes decapitalised as the "white army", is a semi-official name for an ethnic Nuer militant organization in central and eastern Greater Upper Nile in modern-day South Sudan formed around 1991. According to the Small Arm ...

, including the

2025 Nasir clashes Clashes broke out in the South Sudanese town of Nasir between members of the South Sudan People's Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Nuer White Army on 3 March 2025, resulting in the capture of the town's army barracks by the White Army. During an SSP ...

References

External links

{{Authority control Populated places in Upper Nile (state) Nasir County