The international community on Wednesday condemned “reported attacks” by forces loyal to South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on bases operated by the main opposition party, saying such actions risked returning the young nation to violence.
The world’s newest nation has struggled to draw a line under a five-year civil war that ended in 2018, with former rivals Kiir and his Vice President Riek Machar unable to agree on the implementation of the peace deal they signed.
On Tuesday, Machar’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) announced its withdrawal from a body overseeing the peace process over “unprovoked” attacks on its bases by its “peace partner”.
The decision is the latest blow to the country’s shaky prospects for stability, deepening fissures between factions loyal to Machar and Kiir.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the so-called Troika of Britain, Norway and the United States criticised Kiir’s forces for carrying out “a series of reported attacks across Unity and Upper Nile states… over the last two months.”
“Incidents such as these and the resulting cycles of revenge attacks risk greater violence in the country,” it said, condemning Kiir’s party for encouraging SPLM/A-IO members to defect and engage in armed clashes against their former comrades.
“We call on the Government of South Sudan to exercise leadership and oversight of the nation’s security forces to maintain discipline and compliance with the Peace Agreement,” it said.
Since achieving independence in 2011, South Sudan has spent almost half of its life as a nation at war.
Almost 400,000 people died in the civil war before Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal in 2018 and formed a unity government two years ago.
Since then, the country has lurched from crisis to crisis, battling flooding, hunger, violence and political bickering as the promises of the peace agreement have failed to materialise.
The UN has repeatedly criticised South Sudan’s leadership for its role in stoking violence, cracking down on political freedoms and plundering public coffers.
At least 440 civilians were killed in brutal fighting between rival militias in the southwest between June and September last year, a joint report by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the UN Human Rights Office said this month.
It blamed forces loyal to Kiir and rival troops under Machar, as well as “their respective affiliated militias”, for the violence.
