South Sudan

A peacekeeper is in stable condition a day after being shot during an attempted ambush on a UN convoy in South Sudan, the UN Mission in the country, UNMISS, and the World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Tuesday. 

Fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition and armed youths, which began in Mirmir Payam, has spread to several villages in Koch, Mayiandit and Leer. “UNMISS strongly condemns the violence at a time when humanitarian needs are rising, and people are already reeling from the worst flooding in decades," the statement said.

Side deals between President Salva Kiir and renegade opposition leaders jeopardise the 2018 agreement that ended the worst fighting of South Sudan’s civil war. East African mediators should press the principal combatants – Kiir and Riek Machar – to restart talks on the issues that divide them.

[…] On Monday, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) Interim Chairperson Maj Gen Charles Tai Gituai asked the peace parties to utilise the remaining days before end of transitional period to address the delays on proposed laws.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in South Sudan on Wednesday strongly condemned the continued violence across the country, which is affecting the safety of civilians and humanitarian workers, constraining humanitarian access, and disrupting the delivery of aid and services to thousands of vulnerable people.

UN human rights experts have warned of increased political violence and polarization between communities across the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, following a fact-finding visit there this week. 

Although internal conflict erupted within the world’s youngest country after independence in 2011, Radio Miraya, the news service launched by the UN Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan in 2005, has stuck fast to its original mandate of trying to bring the country together, becoming the most popular and trusted source of information in the country to this day.

[…] But analysts, conflict monitoring groups, and local residents say the peace agreement has in fact caused a significant escalation in violence, as commanders and politicians compete for power in a transitional government based in the capital, Juba, by fighting wars in the peripheries – conflicts that international actors, including a billion-dollar UN mission in the country, and the United Nations Security Council, which has sanctioned South Sudan, often chalk down to communities fighting each other.

The attack reportedly occurred on Sunday when armed youth from the Murle community carried out cattle raids in two villages in Baidit, UNMISS said, citing various independent sources, including the independent Human Rights Commission. Some 32 people from the Dinka Bor community were killed.

A South Sudanese break-away military group of the main opposition party, the Sudan People Liberation Army – In Opposition (SPLA-IO), has shifted allegiance to President Salva Kiir in what seems to be a violation of the 2018 peace agreement.