Peace elusive as South Sudan marks 3 years of war

Juba / AFP

Despite a brief truce, hopes for peace have crumbled in South Sudan as its civil war hits the three-year mark with ethnic violence only getting worse and no end in sight.
“South Sudan’s war continues to escalate and engulf more and more of the country,” said Alan Boswell, an independent analyst, who expects further major offensives with the imminent start of the dry season. The international community, which strongly backed the country’s drive to independence in 2011, has been powerless to stop the worsening violence, with the UN issuing stark warnings of potential genocide and ethnic
cleansing.
Both sides have been recruiting new soldiers—sometimes by force and including children—and are preparing for full-on war, said Boswell, while diplomats struggle with how to prevent it.
“There’s no actual peace process or political plan right now. So there is no framework for the international community to even pressure the parties to stop,” said Boswell.
“The international community has more less accepted that (more) fighting is about to break out,” he added. War broke out on December 15, 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy and political rival, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. A peace agreement signed two and a half years later raised hopes of an end to a conflict marked by atrocities which has left tens of thousands dead and more than three million displaced.
The deal’s implementation, however, lasted just over two months. Machar returned to the capital Juba in late April to form a government of national unity with Kiir, but violent clashes broke out in July, leaving hundreds dead.
Machar was forced to flee through the jungles of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is now exiled in South Africa—isolated but still the bellicose leader of the rebellion.
After its outbreak in Juba the war was largely restricted to the northern states of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei but has in recent months expanded into the southern Equatoria region surrounding Juba.