Nasir (city)
Coordinates: 8 ° 37 ' N , 33 ° 5' E
Nasir ( Arabic الناصر an-Nāṣir ; sometimes written as Nasser ) is a small town in South Sudan . It has been the capital of the newly founded state of Latjoor since 2015 .
location
The city is located on the Sobat River in the state of Upper Nile (Obernil), around 25 kilometers from the border with Ethiopia and around 450 km from Juba .
population
The inhabitants of Nasir are predominantly of the Nuer ethnic group . The exact number of inhabitants is not known. It should be less than 20,000.
Today (as of June 2016) the city is completely deserted by its residents.
history
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Nasir was the seat of US Presbyterian missionaries .
Nasir played a strategic role in the second civil war , when the area became the seat of a rebel faction from 1991, the SPLA-Nasir and later SPLA-United , which was led by Riek Machar , a later vice-president of South Sudan. This time in Nasir is described in the novel Emma's War by Deborah Scroggins .
The city was fiercely fought during the civil war (between the north of Sudan and the south - before the partition in 2011) and was bombed. Only a few brick buildings from the colonial era have survived, otherwise the building consists of tukuls (mud huts).
In the course of the clashes (civil war in South Sudan) between the units of President Salva Kiir (SPLA - Sudanese People Liberation Army) and Vice-President Riek Machar (SPLA iO - Sudanese People Liberation Army in opposition), this city was again fiercely contested in the course of 2013 . This led to the city being abandoned and abandoned by its residents. Most of the population fled to Ethiopia. Around 95% of the city's buildings have been destroyed.
Today (as of June 2016) there is a SPLA unit approx. 2 km west of the city. The area to the east is in the hands of the SPLA iO troops. In between there is a small team site of the UNMISS mission with international military observers on the eastern outskirts .
Infrastructure
Nasir has no electricity or telephone network and no drinking water systems. There are two primary schools. The Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders ran a clinic. As a result of the clashes in 2013, however, these facilities were also destroyed and abandoned.
In addition, there is an "airstrip" in the east of the city - an approx. 1500 m long, grassy runway that is used irregularly by smaller freight planes to supply the SPLA unit.