UN peacekeeping chief visits Bor, pledges support to South Sudan
By John Actually
July 7, 2013 (BOR) -The United Nations head of Department of Peacekeeping Operation (DPKO) Hervé Ladsous on Sunday visited Bor and pledged UN support in helping South Sudan develop into a modern state.
Ladsous said the UN’s mandate in South Sudan would soon be renewed and that the peace keeping mission will continue to monitor peace in areas where they have been deployed in the country.
The UN’s head of peace keeping however said that with austerity measures in many countries around the world, the UN is facing financial challenges which he said makes it difficult for the global body to address all the challenges in South Sudan.
“It is clear that the United Nation doesn’t have the means to take over all these issues immediately in this time of financial austerity in the whole world”, said Ladsous.
In his briefing to the UN team, the state governor, Kuol Manyang Juuk, attributed the violence in his state to poverty.
“I briefed him [Hervé Ladsous] that this insecurity is a poverty generated action. These are people who are fighting over the cattle, and it has been going on for a very long time, maybe for hundreds years…because the people have acquired automatic rifles, this why the rate of death is very high,” governor Manyang told the media after his meeting to Ladsous.
The governor said the state is making an effort in educating the people to refrain from cattle raiding, child abduction and killing of innocent persons. To address the challenges, Manyang said the state has prioritised agriculture and is engaged in infrastructure development as one way of addressing poverty. According to the governor, a Korean engineering company has already started road maintenance that will connect the counties of Pochalla to Pibor and Akobo, among others, to Bor.
(ST)