South Sudan peace agreement unraveling, moving to total war, says UN Commission

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned Friday that senior political and military leaders are driving South Sudan toward renewed full-scale war, citing patterns of aerial bombardment, sexual violence, forced recruitment of children, and ethnically targeted attacks that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, commonly known as the 2018 Revitalized Peace agreement, intended to end the country’s civil war, is being systematically undermined as armed actors consolidate power and suppress dissent ahead of planned elections. Investigators documented indiscriminate attacks affecting civilian areas, including reports of bombardments in Upper Nile State, alongside widespread sexual violence and the forced enlistment of children. The Commission warned that inflammatory rhetoric by senior commanders and mobilization of aligned forces have heightened the risk of mass atrocities, particularly in regions already destabilized by intercommunal tensions and militia activity.

The findings follow months of escalating political repression. Opposition figures and individuals affiliated with First Vice President Riek Machar have faced detention and criminal charges, raising concerns about due process and the shrinking space for political participation. Tensions between Machar and President Salva Kiir have intensified since Machar’s house arrest earlier in 2025, further eroding confidence in the transitional process and casting doubt on the credibility of elections scheduled for 2026.

The crisis centers on the fragility of the Peace Agreement, signed in 2018 to end civil war, lasting from 2013 to 2018. The power-sharing arrangement, known as the R-ARCSS, established a ceasefire, mandated the unification of rival armed forces, and set out a transitional pathway toward constitutional reform and elections. However, implementation has not been followed. Military integration remains incomplete, political appointments have fueled factional competition, and accountability mechanisms have yet to be operationalized.

Throughout 2025, UN officials repeatedly cautioned that violence and governance failures were placing the agreement at risk. In March, the Commission warned that renewed clashes and arbitrary detentions threatened to unravel the peace process. By August, briefings to the Security Council described one of the country’s worst humanitarian crises since independence, with millions facing acute food insecurity amid militia fighting and destruction of civilian infrastructure. In October, the Commission reported that armed confrontations had reached levels not seen since 2017, displacing hundreds of thousands and pushing regional refugee numbers into the millions.

In late January 2026, investigators condemned “no quarter” rhetoric attributed to senior military officials in Jonglei State, warning that language calling for indiscriminate violence against civilians can incur liability under international humanitarian and criminal law. The reported troop movements and mass displacement that followed underscored concerns that incitement, when tolerated by command structures, can contribute to large-scale atrocities.

Source: https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/03/south-sudan-peace-agreement-unraveling-moving-to-total-war-says-un-commission/