Adeng Cecilia Manyok’s path from refugee to South Sudan caretaker foreign minister

Adeng Cecilia Manyok, traces her path from a South Sudanese refugee in the United States to a senior diplomat and, most recently, South Sudan’s caretaker minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation. President Salva Kiir dissolved the transitional government on September 22, 2026, and named a caretaker cabinet the same day.

A refugee childhood in the United States

Manyok arrived in the United States at age nine and her family settled in Boise, Idaho. Her early life in the diaspora later became part of her public identity in South Sudan.

Her public profile first widened after she won the first Miss South Sudan pageant in the United States in 2006. The Washington Post reported at the time that Cecilia Adeng, then a 20-year-old political science student at Fisk University in Nashville, won the title and said she hoped to use the platform to give Sudanese youth a voice.

Education and early public service

Manyok later earned a master’s degree in public administration from Howard University after studying political science. She later managed the Office of the President of the Government of Southern Sudan until 2015.

Her diplomatic career also included service with South Sudan’s mission in Washington, before moving into posts in Juba and New York. UN records listed Cecilia A. M. Adeng as deputy permanent representative to South Sudan’s UN mission, and the South Sudan foreign ministry said she took over as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations in February 2024.

United Nations records and UN reporting later described her as South Sudan’s permanent representative in New York through 2026, including during Security Council meetings earlier this year.

Return to Juba

On September 22, 2026, Kiir appointed Manyok as caretaker minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation as part of a broader caretaker administration. One Citizen Daily reported that the decree followed the dissolution of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity and said caretaker officials would not be allowed to contest the posts they held during the interim period.

Reuters reported that Kiir dissolved the transitional government the same day after signing election-law amendments aimed at clearing the way for December 2026 polls. The appointment places a South Sudanese diaspora figure, and one of the country’s most visible women diplomats, back at the center of government in Juba.