JUBA, South Sudan (AP) – South Sudan is softening its rejection of a regional protection force a day after the U.N. Security Council voted to deploy the 4,000 additional peacekeepers to help restore calm.
Advertisement
UN compounds and UNMISS-managed civilian protection sites were attacked during the fighting and, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a preliminary UN investigation into the violence and its aftermath revealed that Government security forces carried out killings and rapes, and looted and destroyed properties.
Eleven countries in the 15-member council voted in favour of the resolution.
Under Friday’s resolution, the council will consider imposing an embargo if U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports that South Sudan’s government is obstructing deployment of the protection force or the work of UNMISS.
South Sudan criticized the resolution and said it would not cooperate.
The protection force – likely to be made up of troops from Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Rwanda – will guard Juba and the airport and “promptly and effectively engage” those found carrying out or preparing attacks.
Residents of South Sudanwalk outside the Protection of Civilian (POC) site 1 of United Nations (UN) in Juba, South Sudan. Russia, China, Venezuela and Egypt abstained, citing a failure to get permission from South Sudan.
Britain voiced disappointment that the arms embargo was not imposed immediately with Deputy Ambassador Peter Wilson telling the council: “We must and we will return to this issue”.
However, on Wednesday the government raised concerns and rejected the proposal.
A key ally of South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, Uganda said Friday it would not contribute troops to the regional force, even as the United Nations refugee agency reported that 82,000 South Sudanese had crossed the border into Uganda in the last five weeks.
But Pressman emphasised that African regional leaders had requested United Nations approval for a robust force to bolster security and open up space for diplomatic efforts.
An IGAD communique on August 5 noted that the composition, mandate, armament, deployment and funding of the regional protection force shall be done in consultation with South Sudan’s transitional government.
Kiir later replaced Machar as vice president and the rebel leader is now in hiding outside Juba, where he had returned in April to form the unity administration.
Unlike the peacekeeping force in place, the African force, which will be under the auspices of the United Nations mission, will be able pro-actively to engage those threatening civilians.
Advertisement
Thousands of people have been killed and more than three million forced to flee their homes in the war that started in December that year, when Kiir sacked Machar only two years after the country seceded from Sudan.
