United Nations Security Council authorizes to double peacekeeping force in South Sudan 2512132

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Defence & Security News - United Nations

 
 
Wednesday, December 25, 2013 11:02 AM
 
United Nations Security Council authorizes to double peacekeeping force in South Sudan.
The United Nations (UN) Security Council Tuesday, December 24, 2013, authorized almost doubling the United Nations peacekeeping force in strife-torn South Sudan to nearly 14,000 in the face of a rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of civilians dead and tens of thousands of others driven from their homes.
     
The United Nations (UN) Security Council Tuesday, December 24, 2013, authorized almost doubling the United Nations peacekeeping force in strife-torn South Sudan to nearly 14,000 in the face of a rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of civilians dead and tens of thousands of others driven from their homes.
The peacekeepers are members of the Indian contingent of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
     

As requested by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the Council unanimously approved a temporary increase in the strength of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to up to 12,500 military and 1,323 police from a current combined strength of some 7,000, through the transfer of units if necessary from other UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Darfur, Abyei, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia.

In a resolution passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes the use of force, the 15-member Council demanded an immediate cessation of hostilities and the immediate opening of a dialogue between the rival factions, and condemned the fighting and violence targeted against civilians and specific ethnic and other communities as well as attacks and threats against UNMISS.

Tensions within South Sudan, the world’s youngest country which only gained independence in 2011 after seceding from Sudan, burst out into open conflict on 15 December when President Salva Kiir's Government said soldiers loyal to former deputy president Riek Machar, dismissed in July, launched an attempted coup. Mr. Kiir belongs to the Dinka ethnic group and Mr. Machar to the Lou Nuer.

Last week, 2,000 heavily armed assailants stormed an UNMISS base in Akobo, in restive Jonglei state, in a brazen attack that left some 20 Dinka civilians dead as well as two UN peacekeepers, with a third wounded, and which today’s resolution condemned in the strongest terms.

The UN Council resolution demanded that all parties cooperate fully with UNMISS as it implements its mandate, in particular the protection of civilians, and stressed that efforts to undermine the mission’s ability to implement its mandate and attacks on UN personnel will not be tolerated.