Lobby wants South Sudan sanctioned

Kenya and its peers in the region must exert more pressure on South Sudan warring parties to come to a political solution, human rights campaigners said on Friday.

The rights groups gathered in Nairobi called on the region under the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) to go for sanctions if South Sudan’s leaders drag their feet.

“Regional countries particularly Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia have much more leverage on the actors on the ground than any other country in the world. They must move to contain this violence before it becomes a protracted war,” said Hassan Shire, executive director of the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project.

“There must be a collective effort to ensure that whoever breaks the cessation of hostilities is held accountable individually. What we are seeing now is that we seem to be rewarding people who are killing civilians by inviting them as respectable political actors. No one seems to be putting pressure on them.”

The groups which also included Amnesty International, Crisis Action, Assistance Mission for Africa and eight other South Sudanese organisations accused the region of standing aloof even as civilians perished under a year-long war.

Friday marked a year since S.Sudan, descended to chaos. It started after delegates of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) allied to President Salva Kiir disagreed with those supporting former Vice President Riek Machar.