Nuer White Army

Nuer White Army
Leaders	Bordoang Leah
Dates of operation	1991–present
Headquarters	Yuai, Uror County, South Sudan
Active regions	South Sudan
Ideology	Ethnic nationalism Environmentalism Indigenism
Size	25,000[1][2]
Allies	Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition
Opponents	Government of South Sudan
Battles and wars	Second Sudanese Civil War South Sudanese Civil War
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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.^[1] According to the Small Arms Survey, it arose from the 1991 schism within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) for the dual purpose of defending Nuer cattle herds from neighbouring groups and fighting in the Second Sudanese Civil War between the SPLM/A and the Sudanese government.^[3]

While sometimes reported that the White Army was so named due to the Nuer practice of smearing one's skin with a light-coloured ash as a protection against biting insects, other sources contend the name was merely intended to draw a distinction between the Nuer militia and the Sudan Armed Forces,^[3] with the irregular "white" forces opposing the regular "black" forces, so called because white has a positive connotation and black a negative one.^[4]