South Sudan on brink of renewed civil war, UN warns

The United Nations has warned that as conflict between rival factions grows, South Sudan could start to experience a new civil war.

Late on Monday, Nicholas Haysom, the head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), commented that the country’s current situation is “dire” as tensions between forces allied with Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir continue to grow.

The UN official warned that disinformation and hate speech are causing ethnic hatred and causing more violence that has caused tens of thousands of people to flee. A peace deal would only be possible if Kiir and Machar were able to “put the interests of their people before their own.”

Soon after gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan, the youngest nation in the world, engaged in a bloody civil war with Machar, an ethnic Nuer, who was allied with Kiir, an ethnic Dinka.

Prior to the pair’s formation of a government of national unity in the wake of the conflict, which claimed more than 40 000 lives. However, there is now more heightened tension.

A group of fighters allegedly affiliated with Machar, the White Army, earlier in March overran a military base in Nasir County, the state’s northeastern Upper Nile.

In response, South Sudanese soldiers surrounded Machar’s home in Juba and detained several of his allies. According to Haysom, the military has also been using aerial strikes to target communities across the Upper Nile.

According to the UN official, “These indiscriminate attacks on civilians are seriously injured and horrific injuries, particularly burns,” adding that an estimated 63, 000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting.

We have no choice but to accept that South Sudan is teetering on the verge of a civil war, he said, “given this grim situation.”

Kiir and Machar have little faith in the other to adhere to the terms of the peace agreement, according to the UN official.

An election that was supposed to take place in 2023 has already been postponed twice, and it won’t be until 2026.

According to Haysom, “Range misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech are also ratcheting up tensions and causing ethnic divisions, and fear.”