The South Sudanese government has not taken any action to realize a pledge it made to cooperate with the United Nations on the deployment of more troops in a bid to avoid an arms embargo, the UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has said.
During a U.N. Security Council visit to South Sudan earlier this month, President Salva Kiir agreed to accept 4,000 extra peacekeepers and to allow some 12,000 peacekeepers already on the ground to move around freely so they can protect civilians.
Ladsous told reporters after briefing the Security Council on Wednesday the agreement “has not been enacted upon at all.”
Following July’s heavy gun fight between forces loyal to President Kiir and those loyal to Riek Machar in the South Sudanese capital, Juba, the UNSC authorized a regional protection force as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
The council also threatened to consider an arms embargo if Kiir’s government did not cooperate.
After that July violence, Riek Machar fled the capital with his troops, and was replaced by Taban Deng Gai as first vice president.
