U.N. Report Details Flow of Foreign Weapons Into South Sudan

UNITED NATIONS — The South Sudan^[1] government spent $20 million last summer on weapons including machine guns and grenade launchers from China^[2], while rebels procured ammunition made by their onetime rivals in neighboring Sudan, according to the United Nations, fueling a war in which villages have been razed and women reportedly raped.

The Security Council, which is considering a draft resolution that would impose an arms embargo, threatened Tuesday to take unspecified “immediate action” if the president, Salva Kiir, failed to sign a peace accord Wednesday as he has promised.

Judging by a report by a panel of experts^[3] that was released Tuesday, oil-rich South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is already awash in weapons. Mr. Kiir’s forces, the panel found, also obtained Russian amphibious armored vehicles, capable of moving soldiers through flooded terrain during the rainy season, Israeli-made rifles and Mi-24 attack helicopters, made in the former Soviet Union.

Opposition forces loyal to Riek Machar, for their part, had received ammunition made in Sudan as recently as 2014. The report said the ammunition was “highly probably airdropped” into rebel-held territory.

“The continuing resupply of arms and ammunition on both sides has been instrumental in the continuation and escalation of the war to its current scale, leading to large-scale violations of international humanitarian law,” the panel said.

China, Russia and Sudan have not signed the global arms trade treaty that seeks to regulate the sale of weapons.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of warfare involving scorched-earth tactics. The South Sudanese have used such tactics against their own people, as the leaders of the warring factions have whipped up their ethnic groups against each other.

On Tuesday, United Nations officials told the Security Council harrowing stories of crimes against civilians, including reports of women and girls being gang-raped and people burned in their homes. “The scope and level of cruelty that has characterized the attacks against civilians,” the United Nations undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien, told council members, “suggests a depth of antipathy that goes beyond political differences.”

Aid workers have been targeted, sometimes on ethnic grounds, Mr. O’Brien said, with 29 of them killed and many others abducted.

South Sudan’s government said on Twitter^[4] that Mr. Kiir planned to sign a peace accord Wednesday in Juba, the capital. It was signed by his rival, Mr. Machar, last week. Diplomats have said it is unclear if either side will abide by promises made in the coming weeks.

The United Nations envoy in South Sudan, Ellen Margrethe Loj, cautioned that an agreement “is only a first step.”

“Peace, stability and prosperity will not come to South Sudan overnight,” she told the Security Council.

References

1. ^{^} More articles about South Sudan. (topics.nytimes.com)
2. ^{^} More news and information about China. (topics.nytimes.com)
3. ^{^} a report by a panel of experts (www.un.org)
4. ^{^} said on Twitter (twitter.com)