UNITED NATIONS — The treason trial of South Sudan's suspended vice president is further eroding a 2018 peace agreement he signed with President Salva Kiir, U.N. experts warned in a new report.
As Riek Machar's trial is taking place in the capital, Juba, the experts said forces from both sides are continuing to confront each other across much of the country and there is a threat of renewed major conflict.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the U.N. Security Council last month that the crisis in South Sudan is escalating, ''a breaking point'' has become visible, and time is running ''dangerously short'' to bring the peace process back on track.
There were high hopes when oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long conflict, but the country slid into a civil war in December 2013 largely based on ethnic divisions, when forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, battled those loyal to Machar, an ethnic Nuer.
More than 400,000 people were killed in the war, which ended with the 2018 peace agreement that brought Kiir and Machar together in a government of national unity. But implementation has been slow, and a long-delayed presidential election is now scheduled for December 2026.
The panel of U.N. experts stressed in a report this week that the political and security landscape in South Sudan looks very different today than it did in 2018 and that ''the conflict that now threatens looks much different to those that came before.''
''Years of neglect have fragmented government and opposition forces alike,'' the experts said, ''resulting in a patchwork of uniformed soldiers, defectors and armed community defense groups that are increasingly preoccupied by local struggles and often unenthused by the prospect of a national confrontation. ''
With limited supplies and low morale, South Sudan's military has relied increasingly on aerial bombings that are ''relatively indiscriminate'' to disrupt the opposition, the experts said.
