Südsudan

Hundreds of former rebels and government troops in South Sudan's unified forces were deployed at a long-overdue ceremony on Wednesday, marking progress for the country's lumbering peace process.

South President Salva Kiir has reiterated his administration’s commitment to free and fair elections come 2024 at the end of the transitional period. He was on Thursday meeting the US Ambassador to Juba, Michael J. Adler in his office.

The World Health Organization warns that soaring rates of severe malnutrition, acute hunger, and deteriorating health conditions are threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people in South Sudan with the situation set to worsen as the climate crisis kicks in.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir is in Moscow for bilateral talks with his Russian counterpart, his office said on Wednesday. The minister for the Presidency, Barnaba Marial Benjamin said Kiir will discuss the peace implementation process and preparations for the 2024 elections.

As South Sudan prepares to hold its first-ever elections in December, resolving critical outstanding issues requires political will for compromise, the UN envoy to the country said on Friday.

[…] After failing to fully implement the 2018 revitalised peace agreement, the signatories extended its term for 24 months to allow for better preparation for elections in December 2024. … There are major political and logistical challenges in the way of an election in South Sudan. Resolving them will require hard choices and difficult trade-offs.

Action is needed now to pave the way for timely and credible elections in South Sudan next December, the UN Special Representative for the country told journalists in the capital, Juba, on Wednesday. “With only 17 months remaining on the Roadmap timelines before elections in 2024, I repeat what I had said in an earlier press conference, that 2023 is a ‘make or break’ year,” Nicholas Haysom said.

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir pledged on Tuesday that elections, previously postponed and now scheduled for next year, would go ahead as planned, and that he would run for president.

[…] "Now is not the time to take our eyes off the ball in South Sudan," Nicholas Haysom, head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan, told the U.N. Security Council. "What we can learn from Sudan is how quickly hard-won peace gains can unravel." This is a critical year for the world's youngest country. A new constitution must be drafted and preparations completed for the first national elections scheduled for December 2024.

The cross-border impact of the crisis in Sudan is unfurling along multiple fronts, and action is urgently needed to ease rising tensions that has already resulted in deadly clashes, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for South Sudan told the Security Council on Tuesday.