In a shift of previous ground, the joint communiqué issued at the end of a meeting announced that South Sudan’s government has accepted the deployment of a 4,000-strong regional protection force.
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South Sudan’s economy, ravaged by a civil war that erupted in 2013, was further damaged by a wave of clashes in July that pitted President Kiir’s troops against the former vice president Riek Machar’s forces in the capital Juba.
Nearly 300 people were killed in the July fighting in Juba, which also saw soldiers in government military uniforms rampage through a residential compound hosting foreign aid workers, including Americans, looting and gang-raping some of the occupants.
This was a key request of Mr Machar, who said he wanted a neutral force to guarantee his safety.
“About 500 fighters of (Riek Machar) have been evacuated and sent to Goma”.
United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed that the mission evacuated “above a hundred” of Machar’s wounded fighters for humanitarian reasons, and that the soldiers gave up their weapons before boarding United Nations helicopters.
Dujarric said the supporters of opposition leader Riek Machar were found in the area around Garamba and evacuated by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo to “receive urgent medical assistance, pending their voluntary disarmament”.
Heads of organizations have been ordered to report to the government “but fear to report because they don’t know what will happen”, the activist said. The objective of the meeting was to impress on Kiir the need for him to allow the approved regional troops into the country.
Kiir publicly agreed last month to accept 4,000 additional United Nations peacekeepers to the 12,000-strong mission already on the ground but details of the deployment still need to be worked out.
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JUBA, South Sudan (AP) – South Sudanese activists say they face government intimidation in retaliation for meeting with the visiting U.N. Security Council last weekend.
