Museveni urged on lasting solution to S. Sudan’s conflict

July 11, 2017 (NAIROBI) – The Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni has been urged to support the renewed peace process spearhead by leaders from the East African regional bloc (IGAD) and help galvanise the region into ensuring lasting peace and stability in South Sudan.

The call was made by South Sudan Young Leadership Forum (SSYLF) day before its members pay an inaugural visit into Uganda in their renewed call for leadership into the South Sudan conflict situation.

A forum of young South Sudan leaders, SSYLF, has an agenda that seeks to ensure South Sudanese youth take over the peace process.

According to the group, by addressing Museveni and calling upon him to take centre-stage to pro-actively push for a lasting solution to the South Sudan conflict, regional stakeholders will be reached to embrace fresh thinking and intervention to the South Sudanese crisis.

“The central role that president Museveni plays within the South Sudan crisis places him in a position of leadership to ensuring that peace process works and is inclusive of all including the youth” the SSYLF said in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.

It added, “This new approach is to infuse the inclusivity and full participation of the younger generation who have, over the years been overlooked in the unfolding events of the South Sudan conflict”.

Renewed violence broke out in the South Sudan capital, Juba when forces loyal to South Sudan president Salva Kiir clashed with those allied to his former deputy Riek Machar on the eve of last year’s Independence Day, leaving over 200 dead. The incident forced the rebel leader out of Juba into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and later to Khartoum for treatment. He currently lives in South Africa.

Almost 2 million people are internally displaced in South Sudan, and more than 1.9 million South Sudanese have fled the country as refugees and asylum seekers since December 2013. Uganda is one of the countries in the region that shoulders a huge baggage of refugees fleeing the conflict.

On Wednesday, however, the delegation of the SSYLF will hold a public discussion in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, with a focus on discussing what options exist for addressing the crisis of leadership in South Sudan.

Campaigns on social media platforms will reportedly be under the hash tag “#NxGenSouthSudan” and “I am #NxGenSouthSudan”.

(ST)