South Sudanese leaders, the report said, have transferred millions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth outside the country while a civil war that has left almost half the country’s people homeless or in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
Advertisement
It revealed that South Sudan, with an estimated population of over 12 million past year, joins Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia as countries that have produced over one million refugees.
“Most of those fleeing South Sudan are women and children”, Leo Dobbs, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told the press at a regular briefing held at the UN Office at Geneva. “We will take them to court; we will hire the law firm in the USA and we will sue them because they have relied on evidence that is completely rubbish”, said President Kiir’s spokesperson.
Sudan on Sunday threatened to shut its border with South Sudan used by refugees fleeing conflict if Juba failed to “fulfil its commitment” of expelling insurgent groups battling Khartoum.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says her country will support an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government there continues to prevent peacekeepers from moving around freely to protect civilians.
Kamal Ismail, state minister of foreign affairs, told state-owned media that South Sudan had promised to expel insurgencies within 21 days during a visit by First Vice President Taban Deng Gai last month. A surge of people has meanwhile also entered western Ethiopia’s Gambella region in the past week, while others have headed to Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic.
In 2015, the United States helped broker a peace deal between the two leaders.
The civil war in Southern Sudan began in 2013 and lasted for two years.
The watchdog’s report also implicated global banks, businesses, arms brokers, property companies and lawyers in “knowingly or unknowingly facilitating the violent kleptocracy that South Sudan has become”.
The power struggle broke out between president Salva Kiir Mayardit and former vice president Riek Machar, backed by rebels. Weeks after Machar flew back to Juba this year to return to his government post, fighting again erupted in July.
South Sudan has been threatened by the United Nations security council with an arms embargo if it does not accept 4,000 additional peacekeepers to help protect civilians.
Advertisement
Van Bohemen said if the secretary-general reports political or operational impediments to the regional protection force or obstructions to peacekeepers, the Security Council will consider the appropriate next steps in line with a resolution allowing for a possible arms embargo.
