UN experts favour keeping South Sudan arms embargo

A panel of UN experts has recommended maintaining an arms embargo imposed on South Sudan because of persistent ceasefire violations, according to a report made public Saturday.

The embargo had been due to expire at the end of the month and the UN Security Council is due to discuss the matter on May 26.

The Panel of Experts on South Sudan recommended, in a 77-page report to the UN Security Council, that the embargo be maintained because of the continuing unrest there.

It has in any case been violated in the 12 months since it was extended in May 2021, said the experts, as the government had bought armoured troop carriers.

A 2018 peace agreement ended five years of bloody civil war between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar, a conflict that left 400,000 dead and forced four million people to flee their homes.

The peace accord provided for a power-sharing arrangement in a government of national unity, set up in 2020 with Kiir as president and Machar as vice-president.

But their rivalry has persisted, leaving many articles of the accord still to be respected, while armed clashes between the two sides have resumed.