Peace Deal Ends in South Sudan on the Country’s 5th Birthday

South Sudan is a landlocked and newly independent country. It’s hemmed in between Sudan, Central African Republic, Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.  It got its independence from Sudan on July 2011. South Sudan is synonymous with futile peace agreements and incessant fighting.

Friends-turned-enemies fighting

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar were friends in the quest for South Sudan’s independence. Fast forward after independence and today they are foes. In the quest for their vested interests, they have pulled South Sudan into a vortex of a deadly fighting, with civilians especially bearing the brunt of the unrest.

Hundreds killed, millions displaced, and country in shambles

Why should Kiir and Machar sacrifice civilians at the altar of their conflicting political ambitions? Why the disregard for the sanctity of South Sudanese lives? It beats logic. In the wake of the fighting, hundreds have been killed, millions rendered homeless, and left the country as a shell of its former self.

When the two leaders blew the August 2015 peace agreement into smithereens, fighting resumed. FYI, since Kiir and Machar went separate ways in 2013, about 2 million South Sudanese have been left homeless and the country is in shambles. The peace agreement was a mile wide but an inch deep. Why, pray, barely had the ink dried that fighting broke out.

They met in the presidential palace on Friday 8, July 2016 but the meeting was ill-fated. It was marred by gunshots in the presidential compound and, according to the BBC, an estimated 200 South Sudanese have died since.

Ineffective UN Peacekeepers not spared

Under the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, UNMISS, U.N Security Council (UNSC) has deployed peacekeepers to South Sudan to quell the fighting. But the Blue Berets have not lived up to their mandate; their protection of civilian sites, PoC, is pathetic.

About 30,000 civilians have sought refuge at the civilian sites with fighters reportedly thwarting the civilians’ efforts of accessing the sites.

According to mainstream media outlets, the fighters also wounded and killed the peacekeeping troops. For instance, a Chinese troop reportedly died when their base was attacked by fighters. A young girl of South Sudan nationality is said to have died during one such attack after a civilian site was shelled; furthermore, sporadic shooting at another site claimed the lives of two South Sudanese grownups.

Grim future and helpless Peacekeeping troops

According to the UNHCR, about a quarter million South Sudanese escape from the country by the end of 2016. By then, there will be more than 1 million South Sudanese asylum seekers. The UNSC castigated the attack on its civilian sites and called for more peacekeeping troops to the chagrin of witnesses. Ironically, the presently deployed troops are said to watch helplessly during the attacks of the civilians sites with some escaping the fight despite being mandated and authorized to defend PoC in every way possible.

The humanitarian efforts of the UNMISS are hampered by the many checkpoints strewn across Juba.  President Kiir has since announced a ceasefire and requested the fighters to decrease the checkpoints.

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