BFF-67 UN, AU ask S.Sudan’s warring sides to deliver on peace deal

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UN, AU ask S.Sudan’s warring sides to deliver on peace deal

JUBA, Oct 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The United Nations and African Union on
Tuesday called on South Sudan’s warring parties to take concrete steps to
implement the latest peace deal signed last month.

Civil war in the world’s youngest country erupted in December 2013 and
uprooted 4.2 million people — roughly a third of the population.

“We are looking forward to further improvement in the security situation
and other positive signals that can generate confidence and mobilisation from
the international community,” Jean Pierre Lacroix, the UN Under Secretary for
Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters, winding up a three-day visit.

Lacroix visited the country with the African Union Commissioner for Peace,
Smail Chergui. He went to UN-run camps for the displaced in Bentiu hosting
114,000 people.

South Sudan’s warring sides signed a permanent peace agreement on September
12. A US-funded survey released recently estimated that nearly 400,000 people
have been killed in the conflict.

“The partners of South Sudan are keen to see a few things materialise
particularly the full cessation of hostilities,” Lacroix said.

“Parties themselves (need to) take the lead in advancing the peace
process.”

The African Union’s Chergui issued a vague warning.

“Let’s just take note today that everybody wants to implement that
agreement faithfully and we will hold accountable any one going the other
road,” he said.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 after a long and bloody
independence struggle.

But just two years later, war broke out, triggering a severe humanitarian
crisis.

A struggle for power between President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka
tribe, and rebel leader and former vice president Riek Machar, a Nuer, meant
the conflict quickly took on an ethnic character with civilians subjected to
massacres and widespread rape by forces on both sides.

Under the new peace deal, Kiir remains president while Machar wins back his
old post of deputy.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions pushed to the
brink of starvation or forced to flee their homes in one of the world’s worst
humanitarian crises.

BSS/AFP/MRI/2328 HRS