South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on Friday, January 24, called on opposition groups to respect the ceasefire agreement so that further negotiations could take place.
Speaking at a news conference in the capital Juba, Kiir said that fighting would not solve the country’s problems.
“I want also to talk to the side led by Riek Machar, and especially the youths that have been given the name of ‘White Army’, that fighting will not solve this problem, and the fact that Riek will not be in control of all these forces.
I am appealing to you that you respect what has been done and so that other things are done in the country,” he added.
South Sudan’s government and rebels signed a ceasefire on Thursday, January 23, to end more than five weeks of fighting that divided Africa’s newest nation and brought it to the brink of civil war.
Fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing the vice president he sacked in July, Riek Machar, erupted in mid-December.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than half a million people have fled their homes, prompting the regional grouping of nations, IGAD, to initiate peace talks. More than 70,000 people have sought refuge at U.N. bases around the country after peacekeepers, in an unusual move, opened their gates to them.
Making the ceasefire hold could test Machar, whose forces include loyalists as well as more autonomous groups battling the centrally controlled government forces.
The United Nations (UN) has reported that government soldiers have tried to break into civilian protection camps in the hunt for rebels, and on Friday the UN aid agency, The World Food Programme (WFP) reported that looters had stolen more than 3,700 tonnes of food – enough to feed 220,000 people for a month – from a UN warehouse in Malakal.
Kiir appealed to his ministers to stop the attacks on the UN agencies.
“There has been a trend of violence against the UN staff. I want the Minister of Defence to control whoever is under his command and to refrain them from any attacks. The same thing goes to the Minister of National Security. Members of national security have been always accused of having interfered with the UN system and then the Minister for Interior. These three ministers must control their organisations and if this is done, I don’t think that the UN will feel threatened in South Sudan,” said Kiir.
The South Sudan conflict has turned along ethnic fault lines, pitting Machar’s Nuer against Kiir’s Dinka people. Several other communities have also taken up weapons. Analysts say the ceasefire does not resolve the broader power struggle.
Several diplomats expressed concern that the conflict could continue. “Ethnic, personal grievances, vengeance will dominate tit-for-tat actions, crimes, killings for some time,” a senior diplomatic source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
South Sudan won its independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of conflict between the northern and southern Sudanese