Two Japanese peacekeepers die months after S. Sudan mission

March 18, 2018 (TOKYO) – Two Japanese Self-Defense Force officers committed suicide after returning home from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, the government said Friday last week.

The government, Japan Times reported, disclosed this as a response to a question raised by Tomoko Abe, the House of Representatives lawmaker from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

However, the Japanese government, in a written statement, said the officers’ death was not linked to their previous work in South Sudan.

In March last year, Japan decided to end its peacekeeping mission in war-torn South Sudan. The 350-member Japanese team had arrived in November 2016 and mainly focused on road construction.

Japan’s constitution, drafted after World War II, forbids the use of force in settling international disputes, but its government reinterpreted the same constitution to allow its troops to apply force in some situations.

Currently, there are more than 12,000 UN peacekeepers in South Sudan, who have often been criticized for failing to protect civilians.

South Sudan has been engulfed in a deadly conflict between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebels allied to former Vice President, Riek Machar.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced from the country since December 2013. In August 2015, a peace deal mediated by regional leaders was signed by two rival factions but has since proved shaky, as a renewed outbreak of violence exposed cracks in the coalition government.

(ST)