SOUTH SUDAN: Escalating violence in the states of Upper Nile and Unity aggravates the humanitarian crisis and makes a negotiated solution to the conflict more difficult
In April, the largest clashes reported since August 2014 took place in the northeastern states of Upper Nile and Unity, according to the International Crisis Group. The government’s offensive against the SPLM/A-in Opposition rebels, loyal to Riek Machar, heightened the humanitarian crisis in the area, cutting off emergency aid to 650,000 people and provoking many reports of rape, arson and looting committed by the South Sudanese Army. Weeks later, rebel forces responded by launching a counter-offensive in the state of Upper Nile, seizing the capital, Malakal, in an attempt to cut off the government’s petrol supply. Rebel spokesman James Gadet Dak explained that the objective of the offensive was to “deny Salva Kiir the possibility of using oil revenue to conduct the war”. The rebels were backed by the commander of the local Shilluk militia, Johnson Olony, a powerful military figure in the oil-producing state of Upper Nile. Salva Kiir’s government accused the government of Sudan of being behind the rebel offensive, while announcing that it had recovered Malakal and control of all oil facilities, though the rebels denied this claim. The hostilities left more than 300,000 people in a serious food and health emergency, displacing more than 60,000 in Bentiu and another 25,000 in Malakal, according to OCHA and UNMISS. Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders and UNICEF denounced the human rights violations that government troops were committing against the civilian population. The serious deterioration in security forced humanitarian organisations and UN agencies to evacuate their staff and to interrupt emergency aid. OCHA called on the parties to the conflict to guarantee the work of aid organisations so they could continue with their emergency operations. Meanwhile, Ellen Margrethe Løj, the UN special representative for South Sudan, visited some of the affected areas in Unity state and urged accountability for the serious human rights violations that the conflict is generating, an idea seconded by Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United States and China also condemned the intensification of violence and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. They were joined in their criticism by other important players like the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC), among others. In turn, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union reacted by urging the UN Security Council to designate people and entities to be sanctioned and immediately requested the imposition of an arms embargo on the warring parties. President Salva Kiir responded by rejecting the proposed measures, claiming that the sanctions were unproductive and warning that they would only intensify the conflict. (AU, Reuters, 11-12-15/05/15; Oxfam, 14/05/15; AFP, 16, 20, 22 and 23/05/15; UNICEF, HRW, 18/05/15; Amnesty International, 21/05/15; AP, 22/05/15; UN, 24/05/15; All Africa, 25-27/05/15; Aljazeera, 26/05/15; ICG 30/04/15)