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PEOPLE GROUP PROFILE

The Lingala of South Sudan

The Lingala of South Sudan, numbering approximately 49,000 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are described as a Lingala-speaking community in South Sudan, largely linked to Congolese migration, that preserves the language and cultural traditions of the Congo River region They are an Diaspora people, with Lingala as their ethnic/kinship group and are in the Bantu, Central-Congo people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples. They mostly adhere to Sunni Islam and Lingala is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Lingala

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: South Sudan
People Cluster: Bantu, Central-Congo
Primary Language(s): Lingala (lin)
Primary Religion(s): Sunni Islam
Population: 49,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG012081

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Pray for the Lingala of South Sudan

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Sunni Islam
Religious Affiliation: Islam

—
%
Sunni Islam Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Lingala
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Lingala Speakers

Media Resources in Lingala:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film

2 films

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Lingala:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
1982 Boyokant Ya Sika✓

1 entry

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Lingala bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 0), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Lingala:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Pray specifically for the Lingala of South Sudan

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
readJohn 3:19

Pray that God will have mercy on those who love the darkness they are walking in and turn from their sin to faith in Christ.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
readIsaiah 43:19

Pray that the lost will see the new thing God can do in their lives and trust in His plan and purpose for them.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
readIsaiah 53:5

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will find comfort and spiritual healing as they remember the wounds of Christ, who understands their suffering because He also walked through suffering on their behalf.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
readIsaiah 43:19

Praise the God who is able to make a way forward, even when it seems impossible. Ask Him to do a new thing among this people group specifically and among the nations, raising up believers to go and share the gospel with individuals and places where it has not flourished before.

Lingala Across Countries (ROP3 - 105785) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

9 people groups

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountry ▼PopulationStrategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
CongolesePG047246CongoleseUnited States38,000No Longer UnreachedLingalaNeo-Pentecostalism
CongolesePG015104CongoleseUganda27,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaNeo-Pentecostalism
LingalaPG012081LingalaSouth Sudan49,000Unengaged and UnreachedLingalaSunni Islam
LingalaPG050322LingalaCongo, Democratic Republic of the4,300,000No Longer UnreachedLingalaRoman Catholicism
LingalaPG012981LingalaCongo189,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaProtestantism
LingalaPG012888LingalaCentral African Republic19,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaProtestantism
LingalaPG047445LingalaCanada3,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaProtestantism
CongolesePG000063CongoleseBelgium15,500No Longer UnreachedLingalaRoman Catholicism
LingalaPG015177LingalaAngola200,000Engaged yet UnreachedLingalaEthnoreligion

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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