More than 50,000 fighters from rival factions in South Sudan's civil war joined the country's new army and police on Tuesday (August 30), a major step in the implementation of the 2018 peace agreement.
This "
unification of forces
" loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival, Vice-President Riek Machar, is one of the main provisions of the peace agreement signed in February 2018 to end five years of bloody civil war. which left nearly 400,000 dead and millions displaced.
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It had so far never materialized, the camps of Kiir and Machar failing to agree on the distribution of positions within the command of these forces.
An agreement was finally reached in April.
At a ceremony held Tuesday in the capital Juba, more than 52,000 men and women from forces loyal to Kiir and Machar but also from the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) movement took the oath.
They will then join the ranks of the army, police and other national security bodies.
The delays in the application of the 2018 agreement arouse the impatience of the international community, which continues to call on the South Sudanese leaders to break the impasse the youngest country in the world, plunged into political violence. -ethnic, economic hardship and humanitarian crises since its independence from Sudan in 2011.
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Their concerns redoubled with the announcement on August 4 by the government of national unity - in place since February 2020 with Salva Kiir as president and Riek Machar as vice-president - that it was extending its mandate by two years. , which was to end in December with elections.
During the swearing-in ceremony, many of the new graduates carried batons instead of guns, due to a years-long arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.
The UN has repeatedly denounced the attitude of the leaders of South Sudan, whom it accuses of stoking violence, repressing political freedoms and embezzling public funds.
In mid-July, the United States withdrew from two organizations monitoring the peace process in South Sudan due to the “
lack of progress
” in the transition process and the “
lack of political will
” of its leaders to bring peace to the country.