IGAD-brokered S Sudan peace talks resume in Ethiopia
Iran Press TV
Thu Dec 18, 2014 3:46PM GMT
South Sudan peace talks have resumed in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa, with mediators urging both sides of the conflict to end the bloodshed.
'Let us make this the last, appalling year of horror and tragedy, not an indicator of South Sudan's future,' chief mediator Seyoum Mesfin said at the beginning of the new round of peace negotiations between South Sudanese warring factions in Addis Ababa on Thursday.
Several rounds of South Sudan peace negotiations, brokered by the East African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have been held so far. However, they have failed to deliver any practical results as the truce deals are frequently violated by both sides of the conflict.
'Such actions (ceasefire violations) are completely unacceptable,' said Mesfin, adding that the international community and East African nations are 'profoundly disappointed by these outrageous actions."
IGAD is a trade bloc in East Africa including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Eritrea and Uganda.
South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy, Riek Machar, around the capital, Juba.
The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and the defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.
The clashes have left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.9 million people to flee their homes in the world's youngest nation.
South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 after its people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum for a split from the North.
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