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.
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And Senegal’s ambassador to the U.N., Fode Seck, said there has been difficulty getting enough troops pledged by regional countries that will make up the force.
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.
However, in a public statement while in Juba, the U.S. Representative to the Security Council, Samantha Power, warned the government against rejecting the deployment of the troops, revealing that any noncompliance would result to the Council resorting to a “Plan B”.
China and Russian Federation abstained from an August 12 Security Council vote on the resolution that authorised deploying a protection force with a more robust mandate than that of UNMISS.
The South Sudanese government this weekend agreed to the deployment of 4,000-strong regional protection force in the war-torn East African country as approved by the United Nations.
“What happened in Rwanda – we’re afraid it can happen in this country”, he told the Security Council, referring to the Hutu genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
In a vote on August 12, the council renewed the UN Mission’s mandate and increased the number of peace keepers in the oil-producing nation to 17, 000.
South Sudan descended into war in December 2013 after Kiir accused his former deputy Machar of plotting a coup. “We heard desperate appeals for the regional protection force to be deployed quickly”. Machar fled Juba and is now in neighboring Sudan.
UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner George Okoth-Obbo, who was on a three-day visit to South Sudan, said the new camp, which was opened in coordination with local authorities and South Sudan’s Commission for Refugee Affairs, will ensure refugee access to quality services.
“As a mother, I can’t imagine that choice – a choice in whether I cook for my kids or whether I risk sexual violence outside the camp”, Power said.
South Sudan would need to know what countries would be contributing troops, how long the soldiers would remain in the country and what weapons they would have.
At the sites, she said, the delegation met many people who could recount bullets flying over their head in the crossfire of the crises that occurred about two months ago.
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“That consent does not mean automatic entrance into South Sudan”, Lueth said.
