Mad Cow: How bride-price inflation is stoking ethnic violence in South Sudan
Mad Cow: How bride-price inflation is stoking ethnic violence in South Sudan
April 16, 2021
Inter-tribal clashes are a major contributing factor to instability in South Sudan, so it is no surprise that an increase in violent cattle raiding has largely been attributed to the current conflict between the Dinka-dominated Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Nuer Sudanese People’s Liberation Army In Opposition (SPLA-IO). Yet these raids, which have led to over 50,000 deaths since the start of the South Sudanese Civil War in December 2013, are not motivated by inter-ethnic animosity alone. In pastoral regions such as Jonglei State, they are also driven by economic factors. Specifically, enormous inflation in bride prices—the payment, in heads of cattle, given by a groom to their bride’s family—has rendered cattle raiding more frequent and more deadly than ever before.