UN To Deploy 4,000 Soldiers To South Sudan
MEP: The United Nations Security Council has approved the deployment of an additional 4,000-strong peacekeeping force to the conflict-hit South Sudan.
The US Ambassador to the UN for Special Political Affairs David Pressman said at a Security Council meeting on Friday “South Sudan’s regional partners and the African Union have called on the [UN] Security Council to authorize urgently a regional protection force this resolution does that.”
The Security Council approved the US-drafted resolution with 11 votes in favor, while Russia, China, Egypt and Venezuela abstained, granting extended powers to the peacekeepers present in the African country and authorizing them to exert “all necessary means” to protect UN personnel and installations there.
In response to the vote, a spokesman for President Salva Kiir said the government would not accept the UN’s decision and would not cooperate with it.
The authorisation follows several days of heavy fighting involving tanks and helicopters in Juba last month between troops loyal to President Kiir and those backing former Vice President Riek Machar that raised fears of a return to full-scale civil war in the world’s newest nation.
Pressman explained the UN force will safeguard the capital city of Juba, facilitate free movement in the city and protect key facilities.
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has been under fire during the past few weeks both for its inability to fully protect civilians when UN sites came under attack in the capital Juba last month, and for allegedly failing to intervene in cases that government forces reportedly committed sexual assaults outside UN camps in the city.
