South Sudan on Tuesday rejected a United Nations appeal to halt the planned expulsion of the world body’s top humanitarian aid official in the country, saying he had regularly spoken out against the government.
The United Nations announced Monday that South Sudan decided to expel Deputy Chief of the UN Mission and coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs Toby Lanzer.
“We cannot withdraw our decision to expel Toby Lanzer,” elaborated South Sudan’s Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Tuesday. He clarified that the move “is a sovereign decision taken by the cabinet due to statements made by the UN official which were deemed to be anti-establishment.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday condemned the move to expel Toby Lanzer, deputy head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan, and said the British-born envoy had been “instrumental in addressing the increasing humanitarian needs of conflict-affected communities” in South Sudan.
More than 2 million people have fled their homes, with 555,000 departing for neighbouring states. About a third of the nation’s 11 million people rely on food aid and other assistance.
“He (Lanzer) has echoed the views of many members of the international community who believe it is time that the leaders of South Sudan pay heed to the suffering of their people,” the European Union delegation in South Sudan said in a statement.
Lanzer’s expulsion was “an affront to the international community” that showed “a callous disregard for the suffering of the South Sudanese people,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Fighting has pitted soldiers backing President Salva Kiir, the country’s leader since independence from Sudan in 2011, against those loyal to his former deputy Riek Machar, who was sacked from his post in mid-2013.
