UNITED NATIONS: The treason trial of South Sudan\u2019s suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, UN experts warned in a new report.<\/p>\n
As Riek Machar\u2019s trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country and there is a threat of renewed major conflict.<\/p>\n
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the UN Security Council last month that the crisis in South Sudan is escalating, \u201ca breaking point\u201d has become visible, and time is running \u201cdangerously short\u201d to bring the peace process back on track.<\/p>\n
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict, but the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions, when forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.<\/p>\n
More than 400,000 people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. But implementation has been slow, and a long-delayed presidential election is now scheduled for December 2026.<\/p>\n
The panel of UN experts stressed in a report this week that the political and security landscape in South Sudan looks very different today than it did in 2018 and that \u201cthe conflict that now threatens looks much different to those that came before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYears of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,\u201d the experts said, \u201cresulting in a patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups that are increasingly preoccupied by local struggles and often unenthused by the prospect of a national confrontation. \u201d<\/p>\n
With limited supplies and low morale, South Sudan\u2019s military has relied increasingly on aerial bombings that are \u201crelatively indiscriminate\u201d to disrupt the opposition, the experts said.<\/p>\n
In a major escalation of tensions in March, a Nuer militia seized an army garrison. Kiir\u2019s government responded, charging Machar and seven other opposition figures with treason, murder, terrorism and other crimes.<\/p>\n
The UN experts said Kiir and his allies insist that, despite having dismissed Machar, implementation of the peace agreement is unaffected, pointing to a faction of the opposition led by Stephen Par Kuol that is still engaged in the peace process.<\/p>\n
Those who refused to join Kuol and sided with Machar\u2019s former deputy, Natheniel Oyet, \u201chave largely been removed from their positions, forcing many to flee the country,\u201d the experts said in the report.<\/p>\n
The African Union, regional countries and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, have all called for Machar\u2019s release and stressed their strong support for implementation of the 2018 agreement, the panel said.<\/p>\n
According to the latest international assessment, 7.7 million people \u2014 57 percent of the population \u2014 face \u201ccrisis\u201d levels of food insecurity, with pockets of famine in some communities most affected by renewed fighting, the panel said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS: The treason trial of South Sudan\u2019s suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, UN experts warned in a new report. As Riek Machar\u2019s trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90966,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90967,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90956\/revisions\/90967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}