The situation in South Sudan is “not one that should be classified as an armed conflict”, Nakatani said at a news conference, citing the orders given by the country’s president and vice president to cease hostilities. “This senseless and inexcusable violence undertaken by those who yet again are putting self-interest above the well-being of their country and people puts at risk everything the South Sudanese people have aspired to over the past five years”, Rice said.
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South Sudan’s President ordered a ceasefire on Monday after a new day of heavy fighting in the capital Juba that sent thousands of people fleeing and threatened a return to civil war. In April, Machar returned to Juba with his guards to become first deputy president in the unity government.
OCHA’s warning came as a fragile ceasefire called by both President Salva Kiir and his opponent Vice President Riek Machar appeared to hold in Juba on Tuesday after four days of gun battles. The rival parties must remove military objectives from civilian areas and work with the UN Mission in South Sudan to provide civilians with safe passage out of frontline areas.
“Several hundred people have already been killed, including civilians seeking refuge”. India is planning to evacuate its citizens from the country, according to a tweet by its external affairs minister. Kiir called for implementing the peace agreement between the government forces and previous opposition army led by Riek Machar.
But J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said in an email that it was unclear how much sway Kiir and Machar and other faction leaders in the “so-called transition government” had over their fighters. A United Nations panel of experts has said Kiir and Machar themselves bear command responsibility for troops who allegedly committed crimes. In lieu of payment, government soldiers have reportedly been allowed to rape women, a United Nations report said. “They are not stopping it”.
The fighting in the capital began Thursday and continued through the weekend, when South Sudan marked its fifth anniversary of independence from Sudan.
The UN is calling for an immediate arms embargo – and it’s all too aware that its ability to protect civilians is once again in doubt. Two UN peacekeepers from China were killed at the base, according to Chinese state media.
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At first, it comprised some 7,000 soldiers and 900 police officers and experts, but the contingent was beefed up dramatically after civil war broke out in December 2013. On Sunday, the UN Security Council said in a press statement that the 15-nation UN body “condemned in the strongest terms the escalation of fighting in Juba”, and they expressed their sympathies and condolences to the families of Chinese peacekeepers who were killed or injured in the attacks.
