Africa

UN calls for tough monitoring of S Sudan truce

348061_South Sudan-army-soldiersThe United Nations has called for tough monitoring of a ceasefire in South Sudan amid reports of clashes between rebels and government forces.

There has been “sporadic violence” in Unity and Upper Nile states, where forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former vice President Riek Machar are fighting, AFP quoted UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq as saying on Monday.

Haq said the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) considers the situation “fragile,” and called on the two sides in the conflict to “implement the cessation of hostilities agreement in full and immediately.”

“Robust mechanisms must be put in place to monitor both sides,” the spokesman added.

The two sides have blamed each other for the new attacks.

On January 23, South Sudan and the rebels signed a ceasefire agreement to end weeks of heavy fighting which led to the death of thousands of people in the world’s youngest nation.

Mediators from the East African regional trading bloc, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), brokered the truce, which came into effect on Friday.

IGAD says it plans to send 18 unarmed observers to monitor the truce in South Sudan but diplomats say the number is too few for the far-flung country with poor transport links.

The fighting between troops of President Kiir, who is from the Dinka ethnic group, and Machar, a Nuer, erupted around Juba on December 15, 2013.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s tribe against Machar’s.

The International Crisis Group said on January 9 that about 10,000 people had been killed in the violence.

“Given the intensity of fighting in over 30 different locations in the past three weeks, we are looking at a death toll approaching 10,000,” said Casie Copeland, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 after its people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum for a split from the North.

The government in Juba is grappling with rampant corruption, unrest and conflict in the deeply impoverished but oil-rich nation left devastated by decades of war.

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