South Sudan divisions widen, new war possible, say UN experts

UN experts are warning that political, military and ethnic divisions in South Sudan are widening, leading to multiple violent incidents between the main signatories to last year’s cease-fire, the possibility of renewed war, and nearly 100,000 people facing “famine-like conditions.”

According to The Associated Press, the experts said in an 81-page report circulated Monday that the slow pace of reforms by President Salva Kiir’s government and more than a year of political disputes and disagreements over how to implement the February 2020 cease-fire and a 2018 peace agreement has led to frayed relations between Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar.

Discontent within Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and his power base in the Dinka ethnic group over his handling of the transition “has led to calls for new leadership,” the panel of experts said in the report to the UN Security Council, according to The Associated Press.

It quoted multiple confidential sources in Kiir’s camp as saying divisions had formed over the distribution of government positions and the president’s attempts “to manage internal tensions among his supporters had failed and resulted in security incidents outside the capital.”

As for Machar, the panel said his inability to influence the government’s decision-making or spur implementation of the cease-fire agreement has led the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Army in Opposition, which the vice president heads, to begin “to break apart.”

Some political and military leaders in Machar’s camp are challenging his leadership, and some military officers have defected to the government, the experts said.

There were high hopes for peace and stability once South Sudan gained its long-fought independence from Sudan.

But the country slid into ethnic violence in December 2013 when forces loyal to Kiir started battling those loyal to Machar, his former vice president who belongs to the Nuer ethnic group.

Numerous attempts at peace failed, including a deal that saw Machar return as vice president in 2016 only to flee months later amid fresh fighting.

The civil war has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced millions.