According to the UN, the number of South Sudanese citizens impacted by violence rose by 35% in the final three months of 2023.
UNMISS, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, has recorded 233 violent incidents that have left 862 persons injured. According to a report that was made public on Monday, 406 of them died, 293 were injured, 100 were abducted, and 63 experienced sexual assault connected to the conflict.
The number of casualties has increased by 35% over the preceding quarter.
The first elections in South Sudan since the 2018 peace agreement between President Salva Kiir and his erstwhile adversary, Riek Machar, ending a five-year violence that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, are scheduled for later this year.
Ethnic tensions and disagreements leading to violence over resources such as land has increased in various parts of the country in recent months, particularly in the oil-rich Abyei region.
Asserting that UNMISS is “doing everything in its ability to avert violence and restore peace to impacted communities,” chief Nicholas Haysom called on the government of South Sudan to step in and “resolve underlying grievances and establish peace.”
It claimed that during the previous year, it had conducted at least 10,000 peacekeeping patrols by air, sea, and land.
One of the youngest countries in the world, South Sudan, also experiences drought and flooding, which makes life difficult for its citizens.
The World Food Program (WFP) claims that South Sudan “remains experiencing a catastrophic humanitarian catastrophe” as a result of violence, economic instability, climatic change, and the influx of people from the fighting in neighboring Sudan in its most recent report on the nation.
(AP)
