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Al-Ahed Telegram

Peace Monitors Urge S. Sudan Rivals to Let Aid into Starvation Zones

Peace Monitors Urge S. Sudan Rivals to Let Aid into Starvation Zones
folder_openSudan access_time8 years ago
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Ceasefire monitors in South Sudan called on rival forces Tuesday to allow food into conflict zones where aid workers warned tens of thousands may be dying of starvation.

Peace Monitors Urge S. Sudan Rivals to Let Aid into Starvation Zones

In the context, former Botswana president, currently Head of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission [JMEC], which was set up by regional bloc IGAD to ensure a peace deal is implemented, Festus Mogae explained that: "Only a fraction of the emergency food" is in place "because of restrictions on aid convoys and due to insecurity."

Earlier last week, the United Nations warned that thousands of civilians fled fighting and extreme hunger in the past month, as leaders struggle to honor a peace deal on the ground.

In addition, back in October, UN-backed experts warned of a "concrete risk of famine" in parts of the northern Unity State if fighting were to continue with 30,000 people facing death by starvation outside areas that could be reached by aid workers.

Although a little aid has been delivered, but civilians report dire conditions and fighting is still ongoing.

A meeting in Juba of the JMEC cited Mogae saying that: "Humanitarian projections suggest things are going to get worse before they get better."

He further urged both sides to order field commanders to "ensure complete and unconditional cooperation with the humanitarian agencies so that this deficiency can be remedied before it is too late."

It was in December of 2013 that civil war broke out in the African country when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that split the poverty-stricken country along ethnic lines.

While political efforts are ongoing in a bid to form a unity government, Mogae warned leaders they had to ensure action to create peace was made on the ground.

Relatively, he informed that: "The meaning of that new government will be quickly questioned if it does not rapidly address the humanitarian situation the country faces."

Both the government and insurgents in South Sudan's two-year conflict have been accused of perpetrating ethnic massacres, recruiting and killing children and carrying out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to "cleanse" areas of their opponents.

Meanwhile, fighting continues, and the conflict now involves multiple armed forces who pay little heed to paper peace deals, driven by local agendas or revenge attacks.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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