UN peacekeepers in South Sudan are moving more aggressively to protect civilians caught in the country’s four-year civil war, after years of criticism for failures that led to the sacking of the mission’s military chief last year.
This year, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has rescued aid workers and UN staff during attacks, saved civilians from abduction by armed groups, and pushed past roadblocks to a massacre site.
“A lot has been done ... to improve UNMISS’ ability to deliver on its protection of civilians mandate,” said Lauren Spink, a South Sudan specialist for the independent US-based advocacy group Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC).
South Sudan was the world’s youngest country when it became independent from Sudan in 2011 following decades of conflict, but the new nation dissolved into civil war less than two years later, after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, fired his deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer.
Since then tens of thousands have died, and 3.5 million of the country’s 12 million citizens have fled their homes, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
As the war spread, families flooded into UN bases seeking protection. More than 210,000 people now stay in six such bases, too fearful to go home.
Between December 2013 and July last year, more than 100 civilians and four UN peacekeepers were killed in attacks on UN bases when peacekeepers did not shoot back, fled, or delayed responding, according to data from the UN and CIVIC.
However, a chastened UNMISS has gradually taken a tougher stance, boosted by the January arrival of new chief David Shearer, a former New Zealand Labour party leader.
“We are trying to make our peacekeeping more robust,” Shearer said. “Our peacekeepers are going to stand up to situations and challenge them.”
Several incidents demonstrate the change. In April, peacekeepers deployed to Aburoc, a village on the Nile. After the UN arrived, rebels withdrew, and a government offensive that had displaced 20,000 civilians paused. Aid workers were then able to stop a cholera outbreak.
The same month, peacekeepers went to Torit in the southeast to protect an orphanage housing 250 children caught between the front lines.
Mongolian peacekeepers in northern Bentiu town have repeatedly rescued civilians from abduction by armed groups this year, including one incident where they fired their weapons.
“There is improvement,” said Peter Ruach, who lives in the camp outside the UN base in Juba.
A year ago government troops raped dozens of women who ventured outside the fence to search for food.
“The Ethiopian battalion have cleared a buffer zone and they make sure that when women are going out for collection of firewood they are protected,” he said.
Since the buffer zone opened at the end of Novembe last year , serious crimes like rape and murder reported near the camp had dropped from around 48 per month to between one and five, the UN said.
Despite more robust peacekeeping, the violence continues. The mission has 12,000 armed peacekeepers and a budget of more than a billion US dollars, but that is not enough to patrol a nation the size of France with under 300km of paved roads.
Peacekeepers were too stretched to deploy to Pagak, a rebel stronghold in the northeast, where a government offensive has displaced thousands and forced dozens of aid workers to evacuate since last month, Shearer said.
Part of the problem is that the UN needs permission from South Sudan’s government for its presence.
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