One of the more fervent hopes for Pope Francis’ visit to South Sudan this week is that it will give a boost to the peace process aimed at ending a decade-long conflict that has claimed millions of lives. are
Government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and opposition forces supporting first vice president Riek Machar signed an accord in 2018 that committed the two sides to share power and form a unified national army.
But implementation of the agreement has been slow and violence has flared between rival communities.
Here are the details about the dispute and the efforts to resolve it:
How did the conflict begin?
War broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, two years after independence from Sudan.
Infighting within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) began after Kiir’s decision to fire Machar as vice president in July.
The resulting war was largely fought along ethnic lines. Kir belongs to the Dinka, the largest ethnic group in South Sudan. The mosquito comes from another large, nev.
According to human rights groups, civilians on both sides were targeted along ethnic lines. A UN commission said in 2016 that ethnic cleansing is taking place.
What have been the results?
The war ended hopes for South Sudan’s independence in 2011 after more than two decades of armed struggle against the Khartoum government in the north.
According to an estimate in 2018, nearly 400,000 deaths occurred in the last five years of the war, either as a result of the conflict or indirectly from factors such as disease or reduced access to health care.
Since then, large numbers of civilians have been killed and displaced in routine skirmishes.
According to the United Nations, 2.2 million are internally displaced in South Sudan and another 2.3 million have left the country as refugees.
In 2017, famine was briefly declared in parts of South Sudan. More than two-thirds of the population is now in need of humanitarian assistance as a result of three years of unprecedented flooding, such as conflict and natural disasters.
Has the peace agreement helped?
The peace deal signed in September 2018 was said to be a “revived” version of the 2015 accord that collapsed the following year. Machar was reinstated as first vice president under intense diplomatic pressure.
The agreement called for the integration of the coalition government, Machar’s forces into the national army and accountability for crimes committed during the war.
In 2019, Pope Francis famously knelt in Rome to kiss the feet of Kiir, Machar and three other vice presidents as he appealed to them to honor the agreement.
Since then, armed violence by signatories has fallen significantly, the United Nations said last year, and some of the treaty’s provisions have been successfully implemented.
But international donors have complained about the government’s slow progress in unifying the army’s various factions into a single unit, writing a new constitution and standing up to a war crimes tribunal.
Last August, the government postponed elections originally scheduled for 2022 by two years. The SPLM nominated Kiir as its candidate in December and voted to revoke Machar’s membership.
Meanwhile, violence between small ethnic militias has flared up repeatedly in different parts of the country, often triggered by disputes over grazing areas, water and other resources.