The
South Sudan Liberation Movement (
SSLM) is an armed group that operates in the
Upper Nile Region of
South Sudan. The group's creation was announced in November 1999 by people of the
Nuer ethnicity who were in both the rebel
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the government-allied
South Sudan Defense Force (SSDF) gathered in
Waat. The SSLM was declared to be unaligned in the
Second Sudanese Civil War, then entering its sixteenth year. The name "South Sudan Liberation Movement" was decided upon the next year, borrowing from the earlier Southern Sudan Liberation Movement, which existed in the 1980s.