Category | Strength | Ratio of weapons to members | Estimated small arms | Notes |
GNU forces | ||||
SAF (not including JIUs) | 225,000 | Various 1 | 310,000 | Infantry and reserves do not seem to lack arms (mostly Kalashnikovs). Popular Defence Forces not included (see below). |
SAF Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) | 17,000 | 1.1/soldier | 19,000 | GNU pays salaries, SAF provides arms. |
National Police Service (NPS) | 100,000 | Various 2 | 110,000 | Central Reserve Police are well armed. |
Popular Defence Forces | 20,000 | 0.5/personnel | 10,000 | Strength may once have been 100,000 men. |
National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) (armed units) | 7,500 | 2.5/official | 19,000 | NISS armed personnel comparatively well equipped and stocked. Separate NISS force to protect oil fields. |
GoSS forces | ||||
SPLA (not including JIUs) | 125,000 | 1.4/combatant | 175,000 | SPLA arms Southern police. |
SPLA JIUs | 16,000 | 1.1/combatant | 17,500 | GNU pays salaries, SPLA provides arms. |
South Sudan Police Service | 28,000 | 0.3/policeman | 8,400 | Budget includes 5,000 more police, but no weapons. |
GoSS Prison Service | 17,000 | 0.08/staff member | 1,300 | Prison staff reported to possess 1,300 AKM rifles. |
GoSS Wildlife Service | 13,000 | 0.08/staff member | 1,000 | Assume no better armed than Prison Service. |
Armed groups | ||||
Eastern Front | 2,000 | 0.5/combatant | 1,000 | Roughly half of estimated 4,000 ex-rebels have joined the SAF or reintegrated into civilian life. |
SAF-aligned Arab militias 3 | 5,000 | 1.2/combatant | 6,000 | Believed to possess some 250 Landcruisers. |
Ex-SAF-aligned Arab militias 4 | 2,000 | 1.2/combatant | 2,400 | Believed to possess some 120 Landcruisers. |
Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - Minni Minawi | 1,500 | 1.2/combatant | 1,800 | Weakening, but benefits from sporadic SAF support. Believed to possess some 80 Landcruisers. |
SLA - Abdul Wahid | 2,500 | 1.2/combatant | 3,000 | Believed to possess some 40 Landcruisers. |
'Addis Ababa Group' 5 | 1,000 | 1.2/combatant | 1,200 | Alliance believed to possess 20-25 Landcruisers. |
Sudan's Liberation Revolutionary Forces (SLRF) 6 | 500 | 1.0/combatant | 500 | SLRF believed to possess perhaps 5-10 Landcruisers, most held by SLA field leadership's Ali Mukhtar. |
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) 7 | 5,000 | 1.5/combatant | 7,500 | JEM believed to possess some 325 Landcruisers. |
National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD) | 500 | 1.2/combatant | 600 | NMRD believed to possess around 30 Landcruisers. |
Chadian groups 8 | 4,000 | 1.5/combatant | 6,000 | Believed to possess some 150 Landcruisers. |
Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) | 500 | 0.8/combatant | 400 | Recent clashes with UPDF have resulted in LRA losing men/access to arms caches. Many LRA now in Central African Republic. |
Foreign UN and state forces | ||||
UN Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) (military units) | 8,800 | 1.4/military personnel | 12,500 | UNMIS police, military observers, and civilian staff are unarmed. No formed (armed) police units. |
AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) (military units and formed police units) | 15,250 | 1.3/military and police personnel | 20,000 | UNAMID like UNMIS, except (1) higher percentage of troop contributors provided with fewer weapons than requested and (2) formed police units are armed. |
Uganda Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) | 2,000 | 1.5/soldier | 3,000 | UPDF Battle Group operates in South Sudan to counter and pursue the LRA (sometimes outside Sudan). |
Additional weapons held by civilians 9 | ||||
Among those residing in the North | 31 million | 4 per 100 | 1.24 million | State security forces and urban settings suggest low ratio. |
Among those residing in the South | 9 million | 8 per 100 | 720,000 | Prevalence of armed violence among pastoralist groups and lack of law and order suggest ratio could be higher. |
Total | n/a | n/a | 2.7 million |
Notes for Table: All figures have been rounded. |
|
1 | Calculation assumes the SAF comprised of 20,000 officers (ratio of 1 weapon per officer), 120,000 infantry (1.5/soldier), 70,000 'reserves' (1.2/reservist), 10,000 air defence units (1.2/serviceman), 10,000 border guards (1.0/guard), and 1,200 navy and 3,500 air force personnel (0.5/serviceman). |
2 | Calculation assumes NPS has for many years consisted of the Central Reserve Police (CRP), Emergency Police, Immigration Police, Petroleum Police, and Popular Police. Recently, the Prison, Customs, and Wildlife services have been incorporated into the NPS. The strengths and comparative levels of equipment among these various components are extremely difficult to ascertain. It is understood that the CRP is the largest and best-armed force among these various units and that personnel possess light weapons and riot-control equipment in addition to their personal firearms. A ratio of 1.5:1 is used for the CRP, which is believed to represent perhaps 20 per cent of the 100,000-strong NPS. Members of the rest of the units are believed to receive one weapon each (which they may or may not have on their person, depending on the assignment). |
3 | The militias are frequently referred to as 'Janjaweed', which is often defined as 'devil on horseback'. The label was originally used to describe bandits. The international media have seized on this term to refer more generally to pro-Khartoum militias responsible for attacks on people in Darfur. While this is not a monolithic group with a unified command structure, the term here is used to denote militias in Darfur, drawn mostly from nomadic Arab tribes, which were armed by Sudanese Military Intelligence and the SAF in 2003-04. Many have since been given army IDs and salaries and remain by and large loyal to the SAF. The militias mostly comprise nomadic camel herders (Abbala), including the Mahamid (e.g. the Um Jalul tribe of Musa Hilal) and the Maharia of 'Hemeti'. This said, three points need to be underscored: (1) many Arabs have remained outside the conflict; (2) some Arabs have sided with the rebels; and (3) 'alignments'-even long-standing ones-can be fluid. |
4 | Many militias in Darfur, previously supported with arms from Khartoum, have since turned against the government. Some have joined pre-existing Darfur rebel movements or their offshoots. Many have formed armed groups of their own, but have not generated significant popular support among Arab communities. |
5 | The Addis Ababa Group owes its genesis to the efforts of US envoy Scott Gration to unite the SLA. In the short term, Gration has united only one faction of SLA Unity with a handful of commanders briefly aligned with Abdel Wahid. |
6 | The SLRF was established in Tripoli, by Libyan diktat, in September 2009 as Libya challenged Qatar's new central role in peacemaking in Darfur. It is an artificial construct designed as a political asset for Col. Gaddhafi. Its membership is unclear. What seems clear is that its creation increased the fragmentation of the rebel movements, splitting, for example, SLA Unity. |
7 | This refers to the movement headed by Khalil Ibrahim, militarily the strongest and politically the most coherent in Darfur. There have been several offshoots of the JEM since it was established in 2003 (e.g. the NMRD and Democratic JEM)-but the JEM has remained relatively stable compared to the SLA. |
8 | The term 'Chadian rebel groups' refers to numerous Darfur-based 'Chadian armed insurgent groups'. As of September 2009, by some accounts there were as many as ten distinct groups. |
9 | In the absence of reliable data, the population figures used here are rough estimates. According to disputed 2008 census results, the population of the North is 30.89 million, with 8.26 million in the South. The GoSS rejected the results on the basis that various populations, including in the south and the west, were deliberately under-counted. The Central Bureau of Statistics refused to share raw data with the South Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics, and Evaluation. |
Source: Berman (2009) |