Nzara, South Sudan

Nzara
Nzara Location in South Sudan
Coordinates: 4°38′49″N 28°15′29″E / 4.647°N 28.258°E / 4.647; 28.258Coordinates: 4°38′49″N 28°15′29″E / 4.647°N 28.258°E / 4.647; 28.258
Country	South Sudan
State	Western Equatoria State
County	Nzara

Nzara is a town in South Sudan. It lies 15 mi (24 km) to the northwest of Yambio by road.

Nzara was the industrial center of the Zande Scheme during the Anglo-Egyptian colonial period.^[1] The Government of South Sudan has since 2006 intended to revive the agro-industrial complex.^[2]

Nzara was the site of the world's first recorded case of the Ebola virus disease. In five months starting in June of 1976, 151 people in the region died of the disease.^[3]

Military Base

Nzara served as the operational headquarters of the 4th Division of the UPDF, the Ugandan contingent in Operation Rudia II, part of the regional campaign military against the Lord's Resistance Army.^[4] After the LRA defeat at Camp Swahili the UPDF ceded overall control of the operation to the FARDC and moved the bulk of its forces to Nzara in March 2009.^[5] About 2000 UPDF troops remained in the DRC, north of Faradge, and Nzara-based attack helicopters supported them in engagements against increasingly concentrated LRA forces.^[5] When LRA Major General Caesar Acellam was captured in May 2012 he was flown from Djema, Central African Republic to Nzara where he gave a televised interview.^[6]

Nzara now houses one of four “Combined Operations Fusion Centers,” or COFCs, in which intelligence and operations are coordinated among the anti-LRA coalition.^[7]

References