South Sudan calls for urgent political engagement

The UN Security Council approved an additional deployment of 6,000 troops to augment the peacekeeping presence of the mission in South Sudan, known by its initials as UNMISS.

This is basically a symbolic gesture with no immediate impact at a time of great urgency. The new soldiers are not available. The Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has tried to re-deploy some of the peacekeepers actually employed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as in Liberia and Cote d´Ivoire. He has not been successful so far. It will be difficult to get that re-deployment as the Troop Contributing Countries will not approve such a move. Troops have been sent to country A and to transfer them to country B is always a lengthy process, and it is normally bound to fail.

The grave situation in South Sudan does require a different approach. It calls for political engagement with the leaders of the factions at war. That engagement has to be robust and bring together high level UN and bilateral envoys. It needs to be very impartial to be accepted by all the parties. And it has to happen now, it cannot wait.

That´s what we would expect the Security Council to decide.