South Sudan’s president and rebel leader yesterday were preparing to meet for the first time since a brutal civil war broke out nearly five months ago, amid mounting international pressure to stem bloodshed and avert famine.
The expected talks, taking place after intense lobbying from world leaders with Washington slapping sanctions on senior military commanders, come a day after the UN warned crimes against humanity had likely be carried out in the still raging conflict.
South Sudanese President Salva Kiir arrived yesterday in the Ethiopian capital, where he was slated to meet his former vice president turned archrival, Riek Machar.
South Sudanese Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said he hoped the meeting “would bring peace” and “allow full implementation of the ceasefire agreement,” which has been in tatters ever since it was signed in January.
However, a spokesman for Machar, who arrived in Addis Ababa late on Thursday, said the two leaders would be unlikely to meet immediately.
Both will first hold talks with their host and top mediator, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
“I don’t think Riek Machar and Salva Kiir will meet directly today,” said James Gadet Dak, a spokesman for Machar.
While both leaders speak of peace, fierce fighting still rages and the UN has warned of the risk of severe famine and genocide.
A UN peacekeeping mission report released on Thursday said that “fighting continues with little hope that civilians will see any respite from the relentless violence.”
Warning of “countless” gross human rights violations, the report said “there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed during the conflict by both government and opposition forces.”
The conflict, which started as a personal rivalry between Kiir and Machar, has seen the army divide along ethnic lines, pitting members of Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer.
“Countless incidents of gross violations of human rights and serious violations of humanitarian law have occurred during the conflict in South Sudan,” the UN report said. “These include extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, the direct targeting of civilians, often along ethnic lines.”
Even as pressure builds to stem the brutal conflict, fears are growing that political leaders can no longer hold back their warring forces as communities spiral into cycles of revenge attacks, Amnesty International said on Thursday.
Testimonies in Amnesty’s report describe civilians, including children, executed by the side of the road “like sheep,” gang rapes of women using sticks and other victims “grotesquely mutilated.”
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