News24
30 Sep 2020, 14:41 GMT+10
The United Nations special envoy to South Sudan on Tuesday said almost no progress has been made in unifying the country's warring forces under one army, as promised under a hard-fought peace deal.
The pledge to bring government and rebel soldiers under a national banner was a cornerstone of a September 2018 peace agreement that paused five years of bloodshed in which 380 000 people died.
But troops brought together at joint training sites across the troubled country were deserting because of a lack of food and other essentials, said UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) special representative David Shearer.
"There has been almost no movement on the critical areas of security sector reform," Shearer told a news conference in Juba.
"At the moment, the process is stuck. It hasn't even moved past the first stage, where forces are trained and graduated. Urgent action is needed to move the process forward."
There was a risk of renewed violence as soldiers disillusioned with the promise of peace return to their villages hungry and frustrated, he said.
"Disillusion is not a good thing - it could lead to frustration and anger and possibly violence," he said.
"A number of people who are there with a promise of joining the armed forces are now going back to the villages... and could cause further instability on the ground."
Shearer also criticised South Sudan's government army for interfering with peacekeeping missions by UN troops tasked with protecting civilians and aid workers in hotspots plagued by armed unrest.
Last month, he said 92 blue helmets were prevented from taking up positions at a new UN base in Lobonok, some 110 kilometres from Juba, by government troops who have been fighting the National Salvation Front (NAS), a holdout rebel group.
The September 2018 agreement, to which NAS is not a signatory, paved the way for the creation of a power-sharing government in Juba, which took control in February 2020, formally ending the war.
But the young country, born in 2011 from an independence struggle with Sudan, is still fragile, racked by armed violence at a local level and crisis levels of food security.
Get a daily dose of Johannesburg Life news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Johannesburg Life.
More InformationMOSCOW, Russia: This week, Russia became the first country to officially recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan since...
CAIRO, Egypt: This week, both Hamas and Israel shared their views ahead of expected peace talks about a new U.S.-backed ceasefire plan....
WASHINGTON, D.C.: The Trump administration has made public a visa decision that would usually be kept private. It did this to send...
MADRID, Spain: Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his younger brother, André Silva, have died in a car accident in Spain. Spanish...
LONDON, U.K.: An unrelenting heatwave sweeping across Europe has pushed early summer temperatures to historic highs, triggering deadly...
President Donald Trump's plans to build a space-based Golden Dome missile defense shield have drawn immediate criticism from China,...
Rio de Janeiro [Brazil], July 7 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with his Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim...
Rio de Janeiro [Brazil], July 7 (ANI): Leaders of BRICS nations reiterated support for 'comprehensive reform' of the United Nations,...
Birmingham [UK], July 7 (ANI): Indian pacer Akash Deep mesmerised one and all with a ten-wicket haul in a critic-silencing, era-defining...
(Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images) Bo Bichette homered, Kevin Gausman struck out nine in 5 2/3 innings and the Toronto Blue...
The groups combined GDP is $20 trillion greater than that of the Western bloc, the Russian president has said BRICS has already outstripped...
MORONI, 6th July, 2025 (WAM) -- Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State, participated on behalf of President His Highness...