Upgraded to 5.9.5 from source and it works again. Probably some files were corrupted.
No, but some library that strongswan relied on changed - so the symbols was no longer matching.
Generally, if possible, it's better to avoid building from source for exactly this reason. In Ubuntu, all packages are matching each other, so upgrading packages ensures that they will still work together.
When you built the new version, you built it against the new library.
Unless you have strong reasons to run a version different from the one in the repositories: don't. Use the included one. If you require special build options, consider downloading the source .deb and rebuilding it. This won't save you from rebuilding, but it will at least make the process hilighted by apt.