SRSG - "Cling to every little sign of hope"
Channel: UNMISS VIDEOS
Date: 2016-11-19

STORYLINE 

The United Nations top official in South Sudan Ellen Margrethe Løj on November 17th told the Security Council that the deterioration of the economy and the increasingly fragmented conflict “have placed the country on a potential downward slide towards greater divisiveness and risk of a full-scale civil conflict that could render national cohesion almost impossible to achieve.”

Løj, who is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan, told Council members in New York that “the guns simply have to be silenced if the suffering of the people is not going to become even more dire.”

The Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, who visited South Sudan last week said “I saw all the signs that ethnic hatred and targeting of civilians could evolve into genocide if something is not done now to stop it. I urge the Security Council and member states of the region to be united and to take action.”

United States Ambassador Samantha Power, during her intervention said “South Sudan is a nation at a precipice” and pointed out that “when the UN’s designated special adviser for the prevention of genocide reaches the conclusion that genocide could be imminent, it should serve as a wake-up call for us all.”

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011. But war broke out in 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of former Vice-President Riek Machar. The political rivals signed a peace agreement in August 2015 to formally end their differences. But in early July this year, close to the fifth anniversary of the country’s independence, the world’s youngest nation was plunged into fresh violence due to clashes between the two rival forces.