South Sudan: Elections Minus Safeguards Could Fuel Renewed Atrocities, Warns UN Commission
The commission said 407 ceasefire violations and unimplemented peace deal provisions leave voters exposed to renewed conflict and atrocity risks.
- On Wednesday, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned that political and security safeguards required for credible Dec. 22 elections are largely absent, risking democratic change.
- Fifteen years after independence, South Sudan faces intensified risk factors for atrocity crimes as armed conflict resumes; the Commission recorded 407 ceasefire violations from August 2025 to January 2026.
- Chief among problems are "renewed armed conflict, weakened institutions, entrenched impunity, exclusionary governance, corruption, shrinking civic space and inflammatory rhetoric," Commissioners stated, with mitigating mechanisms "weakened or suspended."
- Commissioner Barney Afako warned, "The guns are returning while the safeguards for peaceful political competition are disappearing. That is a profoundly dangerous trajectory." South Sudanese deserve elections without fear.
- The Commission stressed that "multiple risk factors for atrocity crimes are converging," warning the window to prevent a return to 2013-2018 displacement is closing, though not yet shut.
10 Articles
10 Articles
South Sudan election could fuel atrocities: UN commission
NAIROBI: South Sudan’s long-awaited elections could fuel renewed conflict and heighten the risk of atrocities, a United Nations Commission warned Thursday. The government said it intends to hold the country’s first-ever elections in December, almost 15 years after it achieved independence. But the impoverished nation has seen increasing violence between forces allied to
UN warns South Sudan’s election could reignite conflict – Axadle
South Sudan’s planned December elections could trigger a new outbreak of violence and increase the threat of atrocities, a United Nations human rights commission warned Thursday. The warning follows the government’s pledge to proceed with the country’s first national elections, nearly 15 years after South Sudan gained independence. Yet violence has been rising between forces […]
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