Ever since the South Sudanese civil war began in December 2013, gunrunning into that nation has reached rampant levels. As South Sudan has hardly any electricity and no manufacturing, both sides were entirely dependent upon buying arms from abroad to fight their war. President Salva Kiir Mayardit used shadowy networks of arms dealers from China, Uganda, Israel, Egypt and the Ukraine to arm his forces. As oil companies paid rent for their concessions in South Sudan, the government was able to afford to buy arms on a lavish scale. In June 2014, the government's National Security Service signed a deal worth $264 million US dollars with a Seychelles-based shell company to buy 30 tanks, 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 20 million bullets. Just who controls the shell company remains a mystery. In July 2014, the Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco delivered a shipment to South Sudan of 95,000 assault rifles and 20 million rounds of ammunition, supplying enough bullets to kill every person in South Sudan twice over. The American arms dealer and private military contractor, Erik Prince, sold to the government for $43 million dollars three Mi-24 attack helicopters and two L-39 jets together with the services of Hungarian mercenary pilots to operate the aircraft. The majority of the arms supplied to South Sudan from Uganda originated from Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, all which are members of the European Union (EU), and were supposed to abide by an EU arms embargo placed on South Sudan in 2011.  