A power-sharing unity government seeking to end nearly three years of civil war characterized by human rights abuses and atrocities was put in place this April between President Salva Kiir and ex-rebel leader Riek Machar, before fighting flared anew and Machar fled the country.
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According to an UNMISS news release, the delegation is led by the Permanent Representatives of the Missions of Senegal and the United States, comprising representatives of all the other permanent and rotating member states of the Security Council.
The visiting Security Council envoys on Saturday also toured a United Nations refugee camp in the capital, where tens of thousands of civilians have lived in squalor and fear during almost three years of fighting between forces loyal to Kiir and rebels trying to drive him from power.
There are already some 12,000 peacekeepers serving in the United Nations mission.
He commended the council for the visit which he believes is a reassurance to the government and South Sudanese people that the global community and the United Nations is committed to help bring peace to the country.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on Sunday agreed to the deployment of a regional protection force to beef up the UN’s large UN peacekeeping mission in the war-scarred nation after initially opposing it as a breach of national sovereignty.
The consent was conditional, Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters in Juba on Monday.
“We reject the foreign intervention”, said Deng Machani, who nonetheless stood beside the road to welcome the diplomats as they left Juba International Airport.
The announcement came after the leader of the world’s youngest nation met with ambassadors of the UN Security Council at the bullet-scarred presidential palace in the capital Juba. It threatened to consider an arms embargo if Kiir’s government did not cooperate.
And not one South Sudanese that the delegation spoke to wants to live in these “Protection of Civilian” sites.
The rare visit focuses on the council’s decision to deploy the peacekeepers with a strengthened mandate to protect civilians after reports of rapes and attacks by government troops.
A transitional government between President Salva Kiir and ex-rebel leader Riek Machar, created to end the conflict, was thrown into turmoil in July when another round of violence between forces loyal to them left at least 270 people dead.
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East African regional bloc IGAD pushed for a regional protection force and has pledged to provide the troops.South Sudan Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elia Lomoro, said the government had no objection to who contributes soldiers.
