UN escalates row with Kenya over fuelling S Sudan conflict

UN boss Antonio Guterres. PHOTO | evans habil | NMG 

By KEVIN J KELLEY

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Summary

• A senior UN official last month named Kenya and Uganda as conduits for arms shipments to South Sudan combatants.

Violence is likely to continue throughout South Sudan in part because some neighbouring countries are helping to arm government forces, the United Nations secretary- general said on Tuesday.

In a report to the Security Council, UN chief Antonio Guterres did not name the countries said to be supplying weapons, which, he charged, pose “the single biggest threat to the protection of civilians in the country.”

But a senior UN official last month named Kenya and Uganda as conduits for arms shipments to South Sudan combatants.

“It is true that large quantities of weapons and ammunition are flowing into South Sudan through Kenya and Uganda,” Adama Dieng, UN special advisor for prevention of genocide, said in an interview in January.

Kenyan Foreign Affairs secretary Dr Monica Juma rejected the allegation as “unfortunate and misguiding.”

READ: Kenya terms UN official’s South Sudan remarks as misguided

Mr Guterres stated on Tuesday, however, that “the conflict in South Sudan could not have been sustained for this long without a steady resupply chain of weapons and ammunition to the parties, notably the government.