Sudan & South Sudan

While the security situation in Sudan’s Darfur region remained stable, the causes of the conflict – and their related consequences – have been largely unaddressed, the head of the African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission said Wednesday, calling on hold-out armed groups to sign the foundational 2011 peace agreement without delay.

With the rainy season approaching in South Sudan, where one in three people has been displaced by more than four years of conflict, a senior United Nations humanitarian official has called for urgent financial support to distribute and preposition life-saving aid supplies.     

A senior United Nations official has stressed the need to ensure survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in Iraq are fully protected and that perpetrators are brought to justice.

A latest review of the United Nations peacekeeping operation in South Sudan has found that reaching a political solution to the ongoing conflict is the most effective way to protect civilians, a senior UN official said Tuesday, urging a renewed focus on supporting the political process.

One year after famine was declared in parts of South Sudan, three United Nations agencies warned on Monday that without sustained humanitarian assistance and access, more than seven million people in the crisis-torn country– almost two-thirds of the population – could become severely food insecure in the coming months.

United Nations panel on human rights violations in South Sudan documents unspeakable cruelty against civilians, not just limited to widescale brutal massacres and sexual violence but extending to individuals trying to defend themselves or their families and had their eyes gouged out, their throats slit or were castrated.

Undue restrictions on freedom of expression are having a “chilling effect” and “further shrinking the space for debate and dissent” in war-torn South Sudan, a new United Nations human rights report has revealed.

If it were a new crisis, it would be one of the biggest in the world, but despite the fact that more than five million people need aid, Sudan is at risk of falling off international donors’ radar, a senior United Nations official has said.

Lieutenant Colonel Katie Hislop of the United Kingdom said she was happy to serve as a role model for young women considering a career with the armed forces. The mother of two was the only woman to head a military contingent at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).

Some 300 child soldiers, including 87 girls, were formally released by armed groups in South Sudan, the United Nations mission in the country reported on Wednesday, calling on all stakeholders to support the young people on the journey back to their communities and help them build a future for themselves.