The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Tuesday extended the mandate for the 19,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in South Sudan for a year while calling for an immediate end to fighting in the country, reported DW News. The council called for a political dialogue to advance a plan to prevent the world’s newest nation from returning to civil war.
The resolution got 13 votes in the council, with China and Russia choosing to abstain. Under the extension, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), which includes a troop ceiling at 17,000 and police ceiling at 2,101, will remain in the world’s newest nation until March 15, 2023.
According to the UNSC, the current level of deployment shall be maintained.
The United States Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield welcomed approval for the strengthened mandate for the UNMISS mission in the U.S.-sponsored resolution.
UNMISS is one of the most expensive UN operations with an annual budget of over $1 billion.
Greenfield said the measure reinforces its mandate to protect the people of South Sudan, support delivery of humanitarian assistance, monitor and investigate human rights and support the peace process in the country.
She said Washington also supports the resolution because it calls for UNMISS to strengthen its sexual and gender-based violence prevention activities in South Sudan.
China’s deputy UN ambassador, Dai Bing, criticized the US for pushing “for inclusion of many human rights-related texts, resulting in a very unbalanced draft resolution.”
South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, has seen facing chronic instability in the years that followed. The country saw a bitter civil war between 2013 and 2018, which left nearly 400,000 dead and millions displaced.
A 2018 peace agreement between arch-enemies Riek Machar and Salva Kiir led to a national unity government, which was formally inaugurated in February 2020, with Kiir as president and Machar as vice president. However, the peace agreement remains largely unimplemented, though the violence has also subsided.
