Akol Koor Kuc, who has headed South Sudan’s intelligence agency since the nation’s 2011 independence from Sudan, was fired by President Salva Kiir last month.
After security forces tried to arrest the former director of the intelligence service, heavy shooting broke out in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, according to Reuters reporters and a warning conveyed to UN staff.
According to Reuters reporters, the shooting started at approximately 1700 GMT on Thursday and continued intermittently for over an hour before subsiding.
According to a UN safety alert that Reuters was able to view, the shooting was connected to the former head of the National Security Service’s (NSS) imprisonment. UN employees were advised to remain indoors.
Akol Koor Kuc, who had headed the NSS since the nation’s independence from Sudan in 2011, was fired by President Salva Kiir in early October and replaced by a close supporter.
A military spokesperson who was contacted over the phone stated that he was attempting to determine what was happening.
Akol Koor’s dismissal, according to analysts, was the result of a power struggle at the top echelons of administration.
It happened weeks after Kiir’s transitional government declared that the December elections would be delayed for a second time.
Between 2013 and 2018, rival groups loyal to Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar engaged in a civil conflict that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
Since then, the two have co-ruled as a transitional administration. There has been some relative calm, but there is regular fighting among a patchwork of armed groups in rural areas, as well as intermittent clashes between the opposing forces.
