Peace deal on verge of collapse – UN

South Sudan is at a ‘dangerous point’ as a surge in killings threatens to tear apart its fragile 2018 peace deal, the UN human rights chief has warned, just one day after Western powers accused soldiers linked to the military of carrying out a deliberate massacre of civilians. The stark alert comes as the world’s youngest nation edges closer to sliding back into full-scale civil war, reports Central News. With 189 civilians already killed in January alone and fresh violence erupting in the east, ordinary families are once again living in fear while leaders struggle to keep the hard-won peace alive. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said:. ‘We are at a dangerous point, when rising violence is combined with deepening uncertainty over South Sudan’s political trajectory, as the peace agreement comes under severe strain.’ He pointed to a 45 % jump in human rights violations and abuses compared with the previous month.

In January alone, UN monitors recorded the deaths of 189 civilians. Türk described the situation as ‘one of the world’s forgotten crises’ and warned that the warning lights are ‘flashing red’. He called for an immediate halt to all fighting and a fresh commitment from all sides to the 2018 peace deal that ended five years of brutal civil war. The Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan was signed in 2018 after a war that killed around 400 000 people and forced millions to flee their homes, according to Central News. It created a power-sharing government between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, set a roadmap for elections and promised to bring peace to a country torn apart by ethnic violence. For several years the deal held, even if it was shaky. But now key parts of that agreement are being ignored or openly challenged. Political detentions, attempts to rewrite the rules and growing mistrust between former enemies have left the peace process in serious trouble.

Full Central News report