Amani Africa tells the UNSC to deploy preventive measures with urgency and decisiveness to pull South Sudan from the brink

Solomon Ayele Dersso, PhD
Founding Director, Amani Africa

 

Thank you, Mr President,

I would like to thank you and Sierra Leon’s Presidency for the invitation extended to me to deliver this briefing representing my organisation, Amani Africa Media and Research Services.

I would like to recognise with appreciation the previous briefers, Under-Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous.

Amani Africa, a pan-African policy research, training and consulting think tank that works on multilateral policy processes of concern and interest for Africa, is the leading source of information and analysis on conflict situations in Africa on the agenda of both the AU Security Council and this Council.

It is therefore an honour for me to draw on Amani Africa’s work for my briefing today.

Mr President

South Sudan is at a very dangerous crossroads. The country shows all the signs of a clear and present danger of relapsing back to full-scale violent conflict.

Political tension is mounting. Fighting and insecurity are spreading. The dire humanitarian situation is worsening. This Council should therefore heed the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council’s warning of the potential of ‘full-scale civil war’ in South Sudan.

The escalation of political tension and armed fighting since the Nasir incident of March 2025 echoes some of the dynamics that precipitated the relapse of the country back to violent conflict in July 2016.

Similar to 2016 and as documented in the Secretary-General’s report, the deepening political tension manifests itself among others in the purges and replacement of senior officials and detention of others. Apart from aggravating political tension and constitutional uncertainty, these actions constitute, as in 2016, serious violations of the peace agreement, signifying the collapsing of the power-sharing arrangement under the 2018 peace agreement.

The Revitalised Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC), the body monitoring the R-ARCSS, observed in its report released last month that there is ‘systematic violation of the responsibility-sharing arrangements across all crucial bodies, including functionality of the executive and legislature.’

The mounting political tension and constitutional crisis are in part a result of the breakdown of the relationship between the parties to the peace agreement and the failure of the international community to ensure its faithful implementation. Significantly, it is also a manifestation of a political scheme for taking a lead position for the elections South Sudan is set to convene at the end of the transition period in December 2026.

Alarmingly, as in 2016 and documented in detail in the Secretary-General’s report, the fighting that erupted between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and armed groups linked to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) has continued to escalate and expand.

With these conditions putting the peace agreement in grave peril, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan concluded that ‘the 2018 Revitalised Peace Agreement — once seen as a roadmap to stability — risks total collapse, amidst political detentions and escalating conflict.’ It is thus imperative to act on RJMEC’s call that the violations of the peace agreement ‘must be addressed urgently to return the implementation process back on track in order to safeguard the gains of the peace Agreement and to prevent a relapse to violence in South Sudan.’

Tragically, as in 2016 and the Secretary-General’s Report presented today shows, the deteriorating political and security situation is having its heavy toll on civilians, aggravating an already dire humanitarian situation facing them. The spreading and escalating violence is precipitating significant civilian casualties and destruction of critical infrastructure, including health facilities, schools, and public buildings, as well as severe limitations of humanitarian access.

The UN OCHA reported that, in addition to the existing two million internally displaced persons, more than 497,000 people were newly displaced between January and September 2025, the vast majority of them, approximately 321,000, due to the renewed conflict. The alarming humanitarian and civilian protection situation is compounded by worsening economic conditions, corruption and disease outbreaks.

This clearly attests that South Sudanese civilians are bearing the brunt of the deteriorating political and security situation in the country, underscoring a heightening need for reinforcing measures for the protection of civilians and humanitarian support.

Mr President, Excellencies, members of the Council

The state of the political, security, peace implementation and humanitarian situation indicates that there are at least three pressing issues that require the urgent policy action of this Council.

The first of these is arresting the downward political and security spiral and preventing the relapse of the country back to conflict. There is a need for deploying robust and prompt preventive diplomacy. This should not just aim at ending the escalating and spreading conflicts. It should also seek to avoid the December 2026 elections from plunging the country into conflict, given the fragility of the context in South Sudan and recent trends on the continent, in which political polarisation erupts into destabilising political crises and violent confrontation during elections.

The second pressing issue is restoring the commitment of parties to the 2018 peace agreement and accelerating the implementation of transitional tasks critical to the peaceful conclusion of the transition period with the convening of peaceful and credible elections.

Third, the imperative to expand support to the work of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), particularly in terms of the implementation of the measures required for both enhancing protection of civilians and advancing sub-national peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts.

Regarding conflict prevention, there are four actions available to this Council. First, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of this Council expressing and availing its full support to the role and ongoing efforts of the AU and the trilateral mechanism (UN-AU-IGAD) plus RJMEC.

Second, and perhaps importantly, this Council needs to exercise its enormous influence to nudge the parties into both ending unilateral actions endangering the peace of the country and engaging in dialogue. The Council can accomplish this directly on its own by undertaking a field mission to South Sudan and engaging the parties, building on the AU Peace and Security Council field mission in August 2025.

Third and complementing the foregoing, this Council may encourage the UN Secretary-General, together with the AU Commission Chairperson, to deploy a joint high-level preventive diplomacy initiative under the UN-AU Joint Framework Partnership for peace and security.

Fourth, and to advance trust building between the parties to the peace agreement, this Council may call for an independent investigation of incidents of violations of the revitalised peace agreement, including the March 2025 incident in Nasir, through a mechanism that is put in place by the UN-AU-IGAD and hold perpetrators of the violations accountable.

Regarding the protection of civilians, I urge the Council to take the following measures. First, to call on all armed actors involved in fighting in South Sudan to cease all hostilities and on the two parties to the revitalised peace agreement to restore full adherence to the Permanent Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements.

Second, the Council should call for respect for all rules of international humanitarian law and human rights by all armed actors and demand that armed actors lift the humanitarian access restrictions they imposed and assure the safety of humanitarian workers to enable the urgent delivery of assistance to the affected communities.

Third and finally, this august body should also expand rather than cut down support for UNMISS and task the Mission to elevate its preparedness for meeting the surge in the need for civilian protection in South Sudan.

Mr President, Excellencies

South Sudanese endured so much suffering for far too long. They cannot afford the perpetuation of the status quo, let alone the addition to their suffering. They deserve some respite. The least of which that can be done in this respect is to spare them from yet another descent of the country into full-scale war.

Prevention of the continuation of the downward spiral of South Sudan is also a regional and international peace and security imperative. With neighbouring Sudan under the grip of a brutal war, the region and international peace and security cannot afford the relapse of South Sudan back to full-scale conflict.

Despite the fact that current global and regional dynamics make your role unenviable, taking the measures listed above and putting South Sudan on a path of concluding its transition peacefully are not beyond your abilities.

I urge you to act with urgency and decisiveness, and deliver for South Sudanese civilians yearning to be spared from further suffering, by preventing South Sudan’s collapse back to full-scale civil war.

I thank you for your attention!