The African Union (AU) is calling on the international community to lift the arms embargo and other sanctions imposed on South Sudan.
“This is to enable the country to build the required capacity of the unified armed forces and for them to more effectively discharge their constitutional mandate of defending the territorial integrity of their country.” Reads part of a communique issued by the AU on the 25th.January 2022 seen by Juba Echo.
The AU also in the same communique appealed to its member states and the broader international community to redouble their efforts in mobilizing the much-needed humanitarian assistance to the people and government of South Sudan to ease human suffering and restore the dignity of the affected population.
South Sudan is currently facing one of the worst humanitarian crises since the country gained independence in 2011, with the United Nations saying flooding has displaced almost a million people, crops and livestock have been washed away, acute food shortage is the result.
The UN says more than seven million South Sudanese people out of the thirteen million population is food insecure.
The AU says it wants the country to push forward with the 2018 peace deal’s implementation.
“AU Commission will undertake to liaise with the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General and the IGAD Executive Secretary to coordinate a trilateral evaluation of the electoral and constitution-making needs of South Sudan, and to submit a report of the evaluation within two months of Council’s decision.” Said the AU.
The continental body further says it will undertake a solidarity visit to South Sudan on the second anniversary of the formation of the Transitional Government on 22 February 2022 aimed at encouraging the country as it embarks on the end-phase of the transition, and start the laborious process to the post-transition era.
The East African country is currently in the process of a permanent constitution-making and the 2018 peace deal dictates that elections be held before the end of the transitional period, that will be in 2023.
