Peacekeepers to remain in place for another year

The UN Security Council on Thursday extended the peacekeeping mission in South Sudan for another year, in a resolution that calls on the young nation to take more responsibility for protecting its civilians.

As South Sudan's first birthday approaches on Monday, the council also demanded that it and Sudan immediately cease all hostilities and human rights abuses against civilians.

The UN refugee agency, meanwhile, has also cast a pall over the coming milestone with warnings that South Sudan's humanitarian situation was reaching a breaking point.

Nearly a year ago, the council authorized the UN Mission in South Sudan, known as UNMISS, after the nation finally gained independence from Sudan. The force of more than 5,000 troops and hundreds of police and UN civilian staff was sent to protect civilians and help improve security after decades of war killed 2 million people.

Since then, however, the neighboring nations have only drawn closer to full-scale war over unresolved issues of oil revenues and their disputed border.

While the council called on South Sudan to step up its own security efforts, Sudan's UN Ambassador Francis Nazario, called on the council to beef up the UN mission.

"The government of South Sudan would like to see UNMISS doing much more than it did last year, and we will definitely call for a mandate to give it more powers," Nazario said.

The mandate of the UN Mission in Sudan, which was created in the wake of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, also expired that day to be replaced by UNMISS.

According to the resolution, the 15-member council called on all member states to "ensure the free, unhindered and expeditious movement to and from the Republic of South Sudan of all personnel, as well as equipment, provisions, supplies and other goods, including vehicles and spare parts, which are for the exclusive and official use of UNMISS".

It also demanded all parties immediately cease all forms of violence and human rights abuses against the civilian populations in South Sudan, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as all violations and abuses against children.

The government of South Sudan should take measures to improve women's participation in the outstanding issues of the CPA and post-independence arrangements, as well as to combat impunity and hold accountable all perpetrators of human rights and international humanitarian law violations, said the resolution.

On Wednesday, the UN refugees commissioner, Antonio Guterres, warned that humanitarian efforts in South Sudan were in a state of crisis, as refugees flee Sudan's turbulent Blue Nile and South Kordofan states. The UN says 175,000 refugees have fled to South Sudan, most in remote areas that lack basic infrastructure.

"The combination of difficult and dangerous conditions in South Sudan and the huge numbers of refugees arriving there mean our operations are severely stretched," Guterres said. "And people are still arriving every day, many of them malnourished, and including unaccompanied children in groups."

In May, the Security Council called for an agreement between Sudan and South Sudan on the status of the disputed, oil-rich border region of Abyei and extended the UN's separate mission there by six months.

AP-Xinhua