UN experts favour keeping South Sudan arms embargo

A panel of UN experts has recommended that the arms embargo on South Sudan be maintained due to ongoing ceasefire violations According to a report released on Saturday.

The embargo was set to expire at the end of the month, and the UN Security Council will meet on May 26 to assess the situation.

Because of the ongoing violence in South Sudan, the Panel of Experts on South Sudan recommended that the embargo be maintained in a 77-page report to the UN Security Council.

It has in any case been violated in the 12 months since it was extended in May 2021, said the experts, as the government had bought armoured troop carriers.

A 2018 peace agreement ended five years of bloody civil war between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, a conflict that left 400,000 dead and forced four million people to flee their homes.

“Far from delivering transformational change to the predatory political system of South Sudan, the peace agreement has itself become a lucrative venue for elite power politics,” said the experts.

The peace accord provided for a power-sharing arrangement in a government of national unity, set up in 2020 with Kiir as president and Machar as vice-president.

But their rivalry has persisted, leaving many articles of the accord still to be respected, while armed clashes between the two sides have resumed.

While acknowledging there had been some progress, the report highlighted the continuing violence, as well as floods that had created “unprecedented levels of food insecurity”.

It added: “Millions remain displaced, with around 70 percent of the population in need of humanitarian assistance.”

It also described state corruption and a “chaotic system of public finances”.

“South Sudanese civilians, along with many of its political, military and civil society leaders, are deeply sceptical of the peace agreement’s prospects of delivering peace and stability to South Sudan without a dramatic course correction,” said the report.

Since its independence in 2011, South Sudan has been plagued by insecurity and is still trying to put an end to a horrific civil war.

Another UN analysis released last month predicted that nine million people would require assistance this year due to the country’s violence and food insecurity.