UNO: The world's youngest nation, South Sudan, is engaged in a precarious peace process but is still plagued by post-civil war violence. On Wednesday, the UN Security Council decided to extend its mission there for another year. The UNMISS mission's mandate was extended by 13 of the council's 15 members until March 15, 2024.
Russia and China didn't vote. In order to hold "credible" elections next year, Nicholas Haysom, the head of UNMISS, urged South Sudan's government to carry out its peace agreement earlier this month.
UNMISS, one of the world body's most costly operations with an annual budget of $1.2 billion, will "maintain its force levels with a ceiling of 17,000 troops and 2,101 police personnel," a UN statement said.
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The resolution that was passed enables UNMISS to carry out tasks in four crucial areas: safeguarding civilians; enhancing the delivery of humanitarian aid; assisting with the implementation of the peace process; and monitoring and documenting violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar agreed to form a transitional government and join forces in a single army to protect the population, which had been severely affected by conflicts and natural disasters, after a five-year civil war ended in 2018 with at least 380,000 deaths.
However, armed conflict persists in the oil-rich nation where the majority of people are living in poverty.
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As President Kiir noted, there are still conflicts that "increasingly present an ethnic or tribal dimension and threaten to unravel hard-won peace gains," as Haysom acknowledged last week.
In the meantime, the United States had expressed "grave alarm" over the increase in violence against civilians in South Sudan.
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On July 9, 2011, South Sudan declared its independence from Sudan, ending years of brutal fighting that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Just one day before South Sudan's day of independence, the UN Security Council established the UN mission.
A national unity government was established in early 2020 as a result of a peace agreement, with Salva Kiir serving as president and Riek Machar as vice president. It was also decided to hold the nation's first democratic elections this year. The election will now take place in late 2024, as both the opposition and the interim administration agreed to last year.