![The Commission Chairperson Yasmin Sooka [UN photo]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Sooka.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=89&ssl=1)
Yasmin Sooka, Chair of the UN Commission, warned that escalating military offensives, political crackdowns, and foreign military presence are not only accelerating the breakdown of peace pacts but also fueling deep fear, instability, and widespread trauma among the people of South Sudan.
“South Sudan’s peace agreement is in crisis. The renewed violence is pushing the Revitalized Peace Agreement to the brink of irrelevance, threatening a total collapse. Such a breakdown risks fragmenting the country even further,” Sooka said in a statement issued on Friday.
Sooka called on the African Union and regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to urgently intervene to salvage the agreement from collapsing.
She also asked the regional partners to pressure South Sudan’s leaders to de-escalate tensions, return to meaningful dialogue, and fully implement the peace agreement.
“It remains the only credible pathway to stability, peace, and democratic transition,” she said.
For his part, Carlos Castresana Fernandez, Commissioner, said South Sudanese are living with extreme trauma, enduring targeted military attacks that have upended lives and instilled widespread fear.
“The ongoing recruitment drive by the SSPDF directly contradicts the Revitalized Agreement, which calls for the training and deployment of the Necessary Unified Forces. The country’s leaders—signatories of the agreement—must abandon partisan agendas and act in the interest of the people,” Castresana said.
He said the world cannot remain as a bystander while civilians are bombed and opposition voices are silenced.
“The time for passive diplomacy is over—these senseless attacks must stop,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Barney Afako, Commissioner of the UN Commission, believed that salvaging South Sudan’s peace agreement should be of utmost priority in an already turbulent region.
“As the agreement enables political adversaries to partner towards a transformative transition in this country. Torpedoing the transition is an act of profound folly and recklessness that is already reigniting violence, deepening insecurity, imposing further grave violations on long-suffering citizens, and undermining regional peace architectures,” said Afako.
“Regional partners and peace guarantors must not indulge these damaging machinations; rather, they should resolve to restore a credible transition urgently that will deliver citizens’ aspirations for durable peace and justice.”
Since March 2025, the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) have launched sustained military operations, including airstrikes on civilian-populated areas, causing significant casualties and mass displacement.
A state of emergency has been declared in several regions where operations continue.
Reports of Ugandan forces supporting the SSPDF, alongside the government’s move to recruit thousands of additional soldiers—seemingly outside the security sector reform commitments in the Revitalized Agreement and pointing towards protracted conflict—have further heightened public fear and concern over looming widespread violations.
Political tensions in South Sudan have sharply escalated with the arbitrary detention of key opposition figures, including the First Vice President, Dr. Riek Machar, alongside expanded military operations by the SSPDF, including in populated civilian areas, and against armed opposition forces and groups.
Escalating armed violence has deepened South Sudan’s humanitarian and human rights crises.
Civilians in Upper Nile State have been particularly affected, as the region—already grappling with emergency-level food insecurity—has become a key transit corridor for refugees fleeing the conflict in Sudan.
Fears are growing that if this conflict trajectory is not averted, South Sudan’s conflict will entwine with the crisis of Sudan, with even more dire consequences.
