According to the permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations Samantha Power, it’s been painfully hard for the United Nations to do its work in South Sudan.
Advertisement
Americans were targeted in a rampage by South Sudanese troops at a Juba hotel compound popular with foreigners a few days after the fighting erupted in July, with witnesses telling the AP that people were gang-raped, beaten and forced to watch a local journalist be shot dead.
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.
Representatives from the 15 nations of the Council are in South Sudan to try to persuade President Salvia Kiir to accept the deployment of a regional force – or face sanctions. Fighting in the capital, Juba, in July killed hundreds.
A force of some 12,000 United Nations peacekeepers is already in the country, and South Sudan has been wary of giving it more authority amid ongoing clashes with opposition forces.
During their four-day visit, the council members are also expected to visit a United Nations camp in Juba where tens of thousands of South Sudanese have sheltered from the fighting.
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) – The U.N.
The visit comes amid tensions between South Sudan and the worldwide community.
US Ambassador to the UN, Ms Samantha Power, told reporters in Juba, South Sudan’s capital city that there were appeals for the Regional Protection Force to be deployed quickly.
South Sudan’s Minister for Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elias Lomoro, said of the planned deployment: “We’re discussing the modalities”.
A delegation from the UN Security Council has met with Internally Displaced People (IDP) living in South Sudan camps to get first-hand information of their plights. “I think this force will help us to further implement this agreement”, Catholic Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro told AFP.
South Sudan descended into war in December 2013 after President Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup.
“I want this country to be peaceful so my children can go back to school”, said Rebecca Julio, a mother of four.
“The refugees have brought to us very disturbing reports”, UNHCR Spokesman Melissa Fleming said at a briefing in Geneva.
Advertisement
A senior council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the trip, said the levels of cooperation needed from the South Sudan to avoid an arms embargo are “nowhere near being met”.
