UN council narrowly approves arms embargo on South Sudan

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council narrowly approved a U.S.-drafted resolution imposing an arms embargo on South Sudan Friday over objections that it could hurt African efforts to end the five-year conflict in the world’s newest nation.

The resolution received the minimum nine “yes” votes. The six other council members abstained — Russia, China, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan and Bolivia.

In addition to an immediate arms embargo, the resolution imposes a travel ban and asset freeze on South Sudan’s deputy defense chief for logistics, Malek Reuben Riak Rengu, and former chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, Paul Malong Awan.

There were high hopes that South Sudan would have peace and stability after its independence from neighboring Sudan in 2011. But it plunged into ethnic violence in December 2013 when forces loyal to President Salva 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 didn’t stop the fighting, and neither did cessation of hostilities agreement this past December and a declaration on June 27.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and forced over 4 million to flee their homes, more than 1.8 million of them leaving the country in what has become one of the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.

The United States tried unsuccessfully in 2016 to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council before the vote that since then “we can only imagine how many weapons made their way to the parties” and were used “to shoot fathers in front of their wives and children, to hold up convoys of food aid, or to assault women and girls.”

“To stop the violence, we need to stop the flow of weapons that armed groups are using to fight each other and to terrorize the people,” she said. “The arms embargo is a measure to protect civilians and help stop the violence. For negotiations to work, we must end the cycle of broken promises to stick to a cease-fire.”

Ethiopia’s U.N. Ambassador Tekeda Alemu strongly opposed the arms embargo telling the council that the High-Level Revitalization Forum organized by the regional group IGAD to try to restore peace “has made notable progress, and for the first time in a long time there is some hope for a possible breakthrough.”