UN Security Council must renew the arms embargo on South Sudan
In 2015, as a civil war was raging in South Sudan, the United Nations Security Council imposed the first set of sanctions on the country, including asset freezes and travel bans on various senior officials. Three years later, after a ceasefire agreement was repeatedly violated, the UNSC mustered the votes to impose a full arms embargo. Fragile peace eventually settled in, but the embargo was kept in place and was extended every year.
The review of the embargo is now coming up on May 29 and there is a push from African members of the UNSC – Sierra Leone, Somalia and Algeria – to lift it. On March 18, the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) publicly called for this measure to end.
But lifting the embargo on South Sudan at this moment would be a mistake. Violence has come back to plague the country, killing at least 180 people between March and mid-April, amid deepening divisions between President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar, who has been placed under house arrest.
Allowing more weapons to enter the country would only escalate the dire situation. This would not be in the interest of neighbouring countries and the African Union as a whole.
Under the AU's development plan, Agenda 2063, the continent set itself an ambitious goal of 'Silencing the Guns' by 2020, later extended to 2030. With this, the AU wants to 'end all wars and violent conflicts and promote dialogue-based mechanisms for conflict prevention and resolution'.
Yet, the AUPSC's call for lifting the embargo on South Sudan does not fall in line with these goals. The justification for this stance is that free access to more weapons can enable the unification of government and opposition forces and reform the security sector.
But this logic ignores the growing fractures in South Sudan amid the renewed tensions between Kiir and Machar. Placing more guns in the hands of warring parties involved in serious human rights violations and crimes under international law would only make the situation worse.
South Sudan's security and defence forces have attacked the very people they are tasked to protect: Civilians. The South Sudanese army, National Security Service and armed opposition forces have been implicated in war crimes and human rights violations for well more than a decade, including by the AU's Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan and the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan.
Indeed, around the time the AUPSC called for the lifting of the arms embargo, South Sudan's government reportedly used improvised incendiary weapons in aerial attacks, killing at least 58 people and injuring others, including children.
To be sure, the existence of the arms embargo is not enough – its enforcement is key. That is already faltering after in early March, Uganda sent troops and military equipment to South Sudan without providing notification or receiving special exemption from the UNSC Sanctions Committee. This is a clear violation of the embargo.
South Sudan's Mi-24 helicopters also seem to be on the move, despite the government's fleet reportedly being non-functional and grounded since the arms embargo was imposed in 2018. This suggests spare parts have been sourced in violation of the embargo.
On May 4, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, reported that two helicopter gunships had bombed its medical facility in Old Fangak the day before and fired at the town, killing seven and injuring 20 others. Deliberate attacks on a medical facility performing its humanitarian function violate international humanitarian law and would constitute a war crime. This is yet another indication of why the UNSC must renew the arms embargo and strengthen its enforcement.
If properly implemented and enforced, a renewed UNSC arms embargo would not obstruct security sector reform. Instead, it would block the disorderly and destabilising accumulation of arms in South Sudan, which is spurring the current conflict and contributing to violations against civilians.
If the AU is serious about silencing the guns, it should back the strict controls prohibiting arms transfers to South Sudan, and the African states in the UNSC should vote to renew the arms embargo.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
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Opapo, Kenya – Perched in the grass alongside the Rongo-Homa Bay Road in Kenya's Migori County, a rusted sign announces the Melkio St Joseph Missions of Messiah Church in Africa. Beyond it, a sandy path meets big blue and purple gates that barricade the now-deserted grounds from view. Just more than a month ago, the church in Opapo village was thrust into the spotlight when reports of secret burials and 'cult-like' practices emerged. On April 21, local police stormed the grounds and discovered two bodies buried within the fenced compound – including that of a police officer who was also a church member – as well as dozens of other worshippers who had been living there. During the raid, 57 people were rescued and taken into custody. In the weeks since, most have been released, but police have banned them from returning to the church and sealed off the compound. 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Many people came to worship and live within the church full time, Opapo villagers remember. 'They were very friendly people who did business around the Opapo area and interacted well with the people here,' Juma said. 'But they would never live outside the church, as they all went back inside in the evening. Within the church compound, they had cattle, sheep, poultry and planted crops for their food.' Though the worshippers could interact with outsiders, locals say the children living there – some with their parents and others who neighbours said were taken in alone – never attended school, while members were barred from seeking medical care if they were sick. On the day of the police raid and rescue, many of the worshippers looked weak and ill, said Juma, who over the years befriended some young people whose parents belonged to the church. 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In Kwoyo in Homa Bay County, Linet Achieng worries about her 71-year-old mother, who left home to join the Migori church 11 years ago and never returned. Her mother was introduced to the church by a neighbour who was originally from Migori, Achieng said. 'Initially, she had gone to seek healing from a backache that had troubled her for years,' said the 43-year-old, explaining that the church offered promises of health. The family initially kept in touch with their mother, asking when she would come home after being healed. She kept making promises to return, but never did. Achieng tried to convince her mother to leave the place, she said, but her attempts were in vain. 'At some point, she stopped talking to us, and when my younger brother and I went to inquire how she was doing, we were sent away from the church and told that unless we were willing to join the church, we were not welcome in there,' she said. After the raid last month, Achieng learned her mother was among those rescued but says she does not want anything to do with her family. While many worshipers' families wait to hear about their relatives, one family knows for sure they will never see their loved one again. Dan Ayoo Obura – a police constable – was one of those who died at the church compound, reportedly on March 27, according to local media reports. He had been introduced to the church by his wife, who was a leader there, his relatives said. Obura had left his workplace at the General Service Unit police headquarters in Nairobi in February before travelling home to Kisumu County on sick leave, according to his uncle Dickson Otieno. He was taken to a hospital in the area, but after a week at the facility, 'he disappeared', Otieno told Al Jazeera. 'We reported to the police and started looking for him everywhere, panicked that we might never see him again. Later, we had information from some neighbours that he is in Migori at a church. That's when we went there to ask the church leaders where he was. They told us he was not at the church and had not seen him. 'About a month later, they called us to say that the person we were looking for had died the previous night and that they had buried him that day.' The family then informed the police and human rights activists like Kiarie, and travelled to Opapo to try and locate his body. Kiarie, who is a rights defender and paralegal at the Nyando Social Justice Centre, accompanied the family to Opapo in March. 'We've not been given the body,' she told Al Jazeera, explaining that she interviewed residents and church members while in Opapo and heard concerning reports about what was happening at the compound. No one was allowed to have an intimate relationship at the church, she said, while husbands and wives were required to separate after joining. These practices were echoed by the compound's neighbours in Migori. 'There are also serious claims of sexual violence at the church where the male leaders were having sex with the girls and women there,' Kiarie said. 'That was why they did not want any man inside to touch the women because they belonged to them,' she alleged. Kiarie said since the police raid, the compound's neighbours have also reported there may be more than just two bodies buried inside – which she said could be what is delaying Obura's exhumation. 'They're still waiting because they said the issue has been picked up by the national government, and they [the national authorities] want to exhume the other bodies [that may be there],' she said. Kiarie feels the Migori church may prove to be another case like the Shakahola cult 'massacre' if it is found that more people indeed died and were buried there without their families' knowledge. 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'Months later, I heard from my brother that they had sold the family's property and were going to live inside the church after ditching earthly possessions. 'We tried to reach them but were blocked by their leader. My husband broke the news to me one morning after a year that they had been found inside the forest and they were dead and buried.' After their deaths, they were buried in mass graves within the Shakahola Forest where the church was located. Upon discovery, following a tip from the local media, the police launched an operation to cordon off the area so they could exhume the bodies, test for DNA, and return the deceased to their relatives for proper burial. They later arrested the church leader, McKenzie, and charged him with the murder of 191 people, child torture, and 'terrorism'. He and several other co-accused remain in police custody, pending sentencing. 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