A sharp deterioration in the political and security situation in South Sudan threatens to undermine the peace gains achieved so far and plunge the country back into war, the head of the United Nations mission in the country warned the UN Security Council on Wednesday, stressing the need for all parties to cease hostilities and respect the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement in South Sudan, where three quarters of the population are in need of humanitarian assistance.
“All our efforts are now focused on preventing a relapse into widespread conflict and refocusing attention on the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement,” Nicholas Haysom, Special Envoy for South Sudan and Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told the 15-member body.
He said the standoff between the two main signatories to the peace agreement had escalated into direct military confrontation.
Tensions have been heightened by internal conflict, particularly between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those aligned with Vice President Riek Machar. In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed the comprehensive peace accord, which was supposed to culminate in elections in December 2024.
However, in June 2024, Kiir and Machar agreed to postpone the elections for another two years. South Sudan is scheduled to hold its long-delayed general elections in December 2026, and many question whether the world's youngest nation will be ready.
The escalation of conflict between the two sides can be traced back to early March in Upper Nile State, when the White Army, an opposition-linked militia, overran the South Sudan People's Defense Forces (SSPDF) garrison in Nasir on March 4. Subsequent aerial bombardments of Nasir, reportedly with devices containing incendiary fuel, resulted in significant casualties, including women and children.
On March 7, an attack on a UNMISS helicopter in Nasir resulted in the death of a crew member and numerous South Sudanese military personnel.
The violence, which has swept Upper Nile State since mid-February, has escalated tensions nationwide, with armed clashes and aerial bombardments resulting in dozens of casualties. Some 130,000 people have been newly displaced, including many thousands who have reportedly crossed into Ethiopia.
Haysom said the White Army and SSPDF in Upper Nile continue to mobilize and recruit children, while the deployment of Ugandan troops at the request of the South Sudanese government has further fueled public fear.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) have been systematically removed from official positions, detained, or forced into hiding. Since March 26, South Sudan's First Vice President Riek Machar has been under house arrest and detention in Juba.
“The arrest of First Vice-President, Riek Machar, reflects a new low,” Haysom said.
Misinformation and hate speech were fueling tensions in an atmosphere "darkly reminiscent" of the 2013 and 2016 conflicts that claimed more than 400,000 lives, he warned.
Haysom urged both national and international actors to work urgently to ensure a cessation of hostilities and to safeguard the integrity of the Revitalized Peace Agreement. UNMISS has been actively engaged in efforts to broker a peaceful solution, working closely with the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), he noted.
The Security Council should call on all parties to respect the ceasefire, comply with the peace agreement and release detained military personnel, he stressed.
In response to the deteriorating security environment, UNMISS has stepped up its protection of civilians, including by strengthening its presence at sites for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Juba and increasing patrols and security at its bases.
Haysom said the four pillars of the UNMISS mandate remain as important as ever.
“This includes protection of civilians; facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance; supporting the implementation of the peace agreement; and monitoring and reporting on human rights,” he added.
As the crisis deepens, he urged the Council to ensure the continuity of the UNMISS mandate.
“The Revitalized Peace Agreement remains the only viable framework to break this cycle of violence in South Sudan,” he said.
“The overriding imperative now is to urgently avert a relapse into full-scale conflict, refocus efforts on accelerating the implementation of the Agreement, and advance the transition towards South Sudan’s first democratic elections.”
He stressed that another “war is a risk South Sudan simply cannot afford, nor can the wider region,”
South Sudan is facing one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, and one of the worst humanitarian prospects since its independence in 2011. Some 9.3 million people - about half of them children - are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 7.7 million are acutely food insecure.
Meanwhile, nearly 2.1 million children under the age of five are at risk of malnutrition. This includes 650,000 children who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and require urgent medical attention.
The worsening emergency in South Sudan is being driven by escalating sub-national violence, spillover from the Sudan conflict, deepening economic collapse, extreme weather events linked to climate change, and a sharp decline in international aid.
A cholera outbreak continues amid a crippled health system, with 49,000 cases and over 900 deaths to date. The ongoing war in neighboring Sudan is also fueling instability in South Sudan. Humanitarian agencies are stretching scarce resources to support the 1.1 million returnees and refugees who have fled the conflict in Sudan since April 2023.
In her briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday, Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), focused on the rapidly escalating violence and its humanitarian impact, the compounding effects of pre-existing crises, and the challenging operating environment and funding constraints.
“If the political crisis is not averted, the humanitarian nightmare will become a reality very quickly,” she warned.
Wosornu said the upsurge in violence and displacement in Upper Nile State since mid-February, “have increased the exposure of women and girls to gender-based violence, including sexual violence, and exploitation”.
With nearly 7.7 million people facing acute hunger, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that vulnerable families in the country's northeast region are at a "critical tipping point," she said.
The “unprecedented influx” of the 1.1 million returnees and refugees since April 2023 had “placed immense pressure on local services, food supplies and already-fragile infrastructure,” particularly in the border areas of Renk, Malakal and Aweil.
The conflict in Sudan is also contributing to an economic crisis in South Sudan, affecting trade, causing inflation to soar to 180 percent and reducing government oil revenues.
“The window of opportunity must be seized to avert a humanitarian nightmare with a relapse of widespread conflict,” she added, calling on all stakeholders to work to prevent the country's descent into chaos and the spillover of conflict into neighboring countries.
“Humanitarian aid alone cannot resolve political crises, but this year our ability to even mitigate the effects is being severely undermined by unprecedented funding cuts. Our scarce resources are already overstretched,” the OCHA official said.
With “lives at stake”, she called for funding to match the high level of needs, noting that the 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) requires US$1.7 billion to support nearly 5.4 million people in the country. To date, the HNRP is only 15 percent funded.
South Sudan is also one of the most vulnerable countries to the extreme effects of climate change. Drought and flooding contribute to food insecurity. Consecutive years of record flooding have led to widespread displacement, loss of farmland and destruction of livelihoods.
In 2024, severe flooding affected approximately 1.4 million people across the country. The climate crisis continues to drive displacement, disrupt food production, escalate competition for scarce resources, and fuel communal violence.
In a related development on Thursday, UNMISS released its annual report on violence affecting civilians, which shows that civilians in South Sudan continued to bear the brunt of violence in 2024, with a worrying 51 percent increase in victims harmed by conventional parties to the conflict and other armed groups.
Between January and December 2024, UNMISS documented 1,019 incidents of violence affecting 3,657 civilians, with 1,561 killed, 1,299 injured, 551 abducted, and 246 subjected to conflict-related sexual violence.
According to the report, armed communal violence by community-based militias and civil defense groups remained the leading cause of harm to civilians, accounting for 79 percent of victims. Warrap State recorded the highest number of civilian deaths and injuries, while Western Equatoria State recorded the highest number of sexual violence incidents.
According to UNMISS, the majority of abductions last year took place in Central Equatoria State, mainly by suspected members of National Salvation Front splinter groups, followed by Jonglei State, allegedly by Murle armed elements.
Subnational violence involving community-based militias and/or civil defense groups accounted for 73 percent of documented incidents and 79 percent of victims, while the conventional parties to the conflict and other armed groups accounted for 18 percent of incidents and 15 percent of victims.
Further information
Full text: Remarks by Mr. Nicholas Haysom, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) - United Nations Security Council, 16 April 2025, UNMISS, released April 16, 2025
https://unmiss.unmissions.org/remarks-mr-nicholas-haysom-special-representative-secretary-general-and-head-united-nations-mission
Full text: Briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation in South Sudan by Edem Wosornu, Director, Operations and Advocacy for OCHA, on behalf of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, OCHA, released April 16, 2025
https://www.unocha.org/news/ocha-warns-security-council-political-crisis-could-trigger-humanitarian-nightmare-south-sudan
Full text: UNMISS Annual brief on violence affecting civilians (January – December 2024),UNMISS, report, released April 17, 2025
https://unmiss.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/annual_brief_on_violence_affecting_civilians_in_south_sudan_january_-_december_2024_0.pdf