Famine threatens millions in South Sudan while government spends half its budget on weapons
Despite South Sudan’s political, humanitarian, and economic crises, UN report identifies ongoing purchase of weapons by President Salva Kiir’s SPLA forces
South Sudan’s government is spending at least half its budget on security and weapons while 100,000 people are dying of starvation as a result of famine caused mainly by an upsurge in government military operations, UN experts said in a new report.
The experts monitoring UN sanctions against the world’s newest nation said another 1 million people are near starvation and the number of people desperately needing food is expected to rise to 5.5 million people “at the height of the lean season in July if nothing is done to curb the severity and breadth of the food crisis”.
At least half of the budget – and likely substantially more – is devoted to security, including arms procurements
The report to the Security Council said that despite the scale and scope of South Sudan’s political, humanitarian, and economic crises, the panel of experts continues to uncover evidence of the ongoing purchase of weapons by President Salva Kiir’s SPLA forces.
The experts called on council members to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan, add additional people blocking peace efforts and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the UN sanctions blacklist, and endorse a recommendation by the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan to establish an international investigation into the most serious crimes committed during the war. South Sudan’s UN Mission said it couldn’t comment because it hasn’t seen the report.
The country plunged into ethnic violence in December 2013 when forces loyal to Kiir, a Dinka, started battling those loyal to Riek Machar, his former vice-president who is a Nuer. A peace deal signed in August 2015 and backed by the United States collapsed last July.
Fighting has spread to new parts of the country since then, and the UN has warned of ethnic cleansing. According to the report, at the end of February over 1.9 million South Sudanese were internally displaced and over 1.6 million had fled the country.
