Proliferation of Illegal Small Arms and the Continuum of Violence in Juba City, South Sudan

The study sought to establish the relationship between the proliferation of illegal small arms and the escalation of violence in Juba City, South Sudan. Anchored on Collier and Hoeffler (CH) Model of “Greed and Grievance in Civil War”, it adopted exploratory-explanatory research design in which both qualitative and quantitative approaches were utilized. It was based on a sample of105 participants, selected through simple random, purposive and snowballing sampling techniques. Data was collected through interviewing and observation. The data was analyzed by both quantitative and qualitative approaches.The study found that the volatile bounder areas,many armed bandits and high suspicion among residents were some of the causes of small arms trade and availability. It recommends strengthening bounder security, enhancement of peace and socioeconomic support for all citizens to ensure high stability and mutual co-existence of the ethnic groups to reduce free availability and use of small arms. Keywords:Proliferation, Escalation, Small arms, violence, socioeconomic survival strategies