Campaign group welcomes extension of arms embargo on South Sudan
May 30, 2023 (NAIROBI) – The campaign group, Amnesty International, has welcomed the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) latest decision to extend the arms embargo on South Sudan for an additional one year.
The UN Security Council voted Tuesday to extend an arms embargo and sanctions imposed on individuals in South Sudan, urging all parties to “avoid a relapse into widespread conflict.”
Resolution 2683, which was adopted with 10 votes in favour and five abstentions, also decides to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts, which assists the work of the South Sudan Sanctions Committee, until July 1, 2024.
It requests the UN secretary-general, in close consultation with the UN Mission in South Sudan and the Panel of Experts, to conduct, no later than April 15, 2024, an assessment of progress achieved on the key benchmarks set out in Resolution 2577 adopted in 2021.
The resolution further requests the South Sudanese authorities to report, by the same date, to the Sanctions Committee on the progress achieved in this regard.
“The extension of the UN arms embargo on South Sudan is welcome news for millions of civilians who have suffered human rights violations by people with guns, including horrific cases of rape and other sexual violence. The arms embargo is crucial to stem the flow of weapons into South Sudan where they have been used to commit and facilitate crimes with flagrant impunity for close to a decade,” Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa in a statement.
In 2018, the Security Council imposed arms embargo on South Sudan and has since renewed it several times with the most recent being in 2022.
Recent reports from the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, the UN Panel of Experts and the Secretary General’s latest report have all highlighted increased cases of conflict-related sexual violence and a lack of progress in implementing the Joint Action Plan.
The action plan is one of the key benchmarks for lifting the arms embargo.
Last year, an Amnesty International report highlighted how guns are used by government soldiers, groups allied to the opposition and other non-stated armed groups in conflict-related sexual violence in South Sudan.
“The UN Security Council vote sends a clear message to the South Sudanese government that it must act urgently to implement the Joint Action Plan on addressing conflict-related sexual violence, among other benchmarks set by the Security Council under Resolution 2577 of May 2021,” stressed Tigere.
“Although this vote is a positive step, we regret that South Sudan will now be allowed to import “non-lethal” equipment without the need to inform and request an exception from the Security Council’s sanctions committee.
Research has shown that security forces continue to misuse less lethal weapons to violently suppress peaceful protests and cause horrific injuries and deaths,” he added.
Meanwhile, the group urged the Security Council to make sure effective measures are in place for controlling the flow of weapons into South Sudan and that individuals who violate the arms embargo be held accountable.
(ST)