S. Sudan Parliament Extends President's Term by 3 Years

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South Sudan's parliament voted on Tuesday to extend President Salva Kiir's term in office by three years, after elections due to be held in June were called off and negotiations to end more than a year of internal conflict broke up without agreement.
Speaker Manasseh Magok Rundial said parliament overwhelmingly approved Kiir's extension, as well as similar three-year prolongation of parliament's own term.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million have fled their homes since fighting between supporters of Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar erupted in the world's newest nation in December 2013.
Talks between the two groups broke up nearly three weeks ago with no deal and no future date set for their resumption, prompting the mediator to say leaders on both sides were failing in their duty to find peace.
The 270 members of parliament present voted on Tuesday to amend the country's transitional 2011 constitution to extend the presidential and parliamentary term until July 9, 2018, with 264 members in favour and a handful opposing it.
In a roadmap to peace agreed in February, Kiir and Machar had agreed the outlines of a power-sharing deal, and they had hoped to reach a final accord by the end of March.
But the talks appear stalled, and fighting continues.
The army said it had repulsed an attack by Machar's rebel forces in southern Unity State on Tuesday. "Rebel forces clashed with SPLA (army) forces in Nhialdiu and Bentiu but SPLA defeated them. At the moment we are yet to establish the exact number of casualties," army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said.
In February, government spokesman Michael Makuei said that the proposal to extend Kiir and parliament's terms was aimed at avoiding any power vacuum in the event that the government fails to reach a permanent deal with rebels.
The lawmakers however rejected extension of the life-term of state governors, saying the Transitional Constitution did not refer to them.
"Our constitution only talks of parliament and presidency, so it is up to the president either let them continue or not in the coming transitional period," said Onyoti Adigo, parliamentary minority leader.
South Sudan's parliament has a total of 302 members, with six members belonging to opposition Sudan People Liberation Movement-Democratic Change Party and the rest belonging to the ruling Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Last year, 21 lawmakers defected from SPLM to the join Machar's rebel movement, prompting parliament to annul their membership.

 

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South Sudan civil war continues on...

South Sudan: Devastation of civil war continues, 2 years on
Dec 16,`15 -- South Sudan's civil war took away everything that had been precious to Mary Nyak Chot.

"All my children were killed. The youngest two were burned in their home. The other four were bombed by artillery. My husband also died," she said on Tuesday while clutching a food ration card. She was attending the first food distribution - organized by the International Committee of the Red Cross - since July in Leer, an area facing famine. It's been two years since the civil war began in South Sudan, a nation which is itself only four years old. The violence continues, despite a peace deal signed more than three months ago. "The situation still remains the same," said Daud Gideon, a member of the Remembrance Project which is collecting names of those lost in the war. "A lot of killing still is happening in different parts of the country, and the lives are being lost on a daily basis."

Nyawel Top sits with her two sick children in a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Leer town, South Sudan on Tuesday Dec. 15, 2015. Tuesday marks the 2 year anniversary of South Sudan's civil war. The food distribution was the first to take place in Leer since July, and the area is experiencing famine conditions. Tuesday marked the 2 year anniversary of South Sudan's civil war.​

The war started on December 15, 2013 after a skirmish between soldiers in a barracks in Juba, the capital. Soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, perpetrated organized ethnic killings of Nuer, the tribe of Kiir's political rival Riek Machar, according to an African Union commission report. The Juba Massacre prompted an uprising of Nuer in the country's northeast led by Machar, a Kiir's former vice president. The insurgents committed revenge massacres which rivaled the Juba killings in their horror, spurring a cycle of violence. The United Nations says tens of thousands have been killed while other estimates range up to 100,000. The brutality of the fighting has shred South Sudan's social fabric, exposing buried ethnic faultlines and creating new ones which have made attempts at reconciliation unsuccessful. "Trust is not there. People are identifying now by their tribes," says the Rev. James Ninrew, a peace activist in Juba. "Even in one community, you will find Nuer are divided, or the Dinka are divided."

Over 2 million people have fled their homes, including hundreds of thousands seeking refuge in neighboring countries. About 180,000 people shelter in squalid United Nations bases rife with disease and violence. Others hide in remote swamps and forests, too afraid to go home. "I'm running away every day," says Nyalen Top, who ventured out of the hinterlands of Leer, the birthplace of Machar and one of the country's most devastated parts of the country, to seek medical help for her two sick children. "It is better to hide yourself in the bush, because if the men get you they can rape or kill you."

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Food security body IPC warns of famine in South Sudan
October 22, 2015 - South Sudan faces a serious risk of famine by the end of this year and 30,000 people are already classified as being in a food security catastrophe, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said on Thursday.

Hunger in the world's newest state has grown steadily worse in the nearly two years since a political crisis led to fighting that reopened ethnic fault lines between President Salva Kiir's Dinka people and ethnic Nuer forces loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar. The two have signed a series of peace deals but fighting rages on. The IPC, whose members include the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), said famine had not been officially declared because it was hard to get data from conflict zones.

But there is a "likelihood" of famine occurring in the coming months in parts of oil-rich Unity State, one of the hardest-hit areas, unless urgent humanitarian access is allowed. "There is a great concern that famine may exist in the coming months but it may not be possible to validate it at that time due to lack of evidence as the result of limited access to the affected areas and populations," it said. South Sudan's government agriculture minister Beda Machar told a news conference there was no "famine" in the country and the food security situation has in fact improved "We advise against the irresponsible use of a word such as "famine" by stakeholders, including the media," the minister said.

Intense fighting in some parts of the country has forced humanitarian groups to pull out, and they say displaced families are surviving on just one meal a day. In extreme cases, people fleeing violence survive by eating water lilies. This marks the first time since the conflict erupted that the ICP has identified that some in South Sudan have reached the fifth phase - catastrophic food insecurity - on its five-point scale. "This is the start of the harvest and we should be seeing a significant improvement in the food security situation across the country," said WFP Country Director Joyce Luma. "Unfortunately this is not the case in places like southern Unity State, where people are on the edge of a catastrophe that can be prevented," Luma said.

Food security body IPC warns of famine in South Sudan