As Juba and opposition forces mobilize, international monitors warn that South Sudan’s unity government is collapsing — a crisis that could redraw East Africa’s fragile balance.
An oversight body tasked with monitoring South Sudan’s 2018 peace agreement has issued a stark warning: both the government and opposition are recruiting new fighters, abducting children, and arming for what could be a return to full-scale war. The findings — presented Tuesday in Juba by the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) — mark the most serious alarm yet that the country’s tenuous peace is unraveling.
At the heart of the report lies a constitutional crisis with regional and geopolitical stakes. The government’s June decision to recruit 4,000 new soldiers and open a new training center violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the 2018 accord — which requires a unified national army before elections can be held.
Opposition factions loyal to former vice president Riek Machar, meanwhile, are accused of mobilizing their own forces and abducting children into service. Together, these actions erode what remains of the fragile power-sharing framework that ended South Sudan’s last civil war.
The RJMEC’s interim chairman, George Aggrey Owinow, warned bluntly that “if the current challenges are not urgently addressed, there is a high risk of reversal of all the gains already made.” His remarks underscore fears that the Kiir–Machar unity government — extended twice beyond its initial mandate — has entered a dangerous limbo: too weak to implement reforms, yet too divided to hold credible elections.
The government’s response was strikingly dismissive. Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro sought to calm fears, insisting the situation “will not derail the peace process.” Yet reports from the U.N. and humanitarian agencies suggest otherwise: civilian casualties have risen nearly 60% since last year, more than 320,000 people have been displaced, and humanitarian access incidents have doubled.
The immediate flashpoint is the prosecution of Machar, now under house arrest and facing charges that include terrorism and crimes against humanity — accusations he denies. His allies say the charges are politically motivated, warning that they risk dismantling the balance of power that has kept the peace deal barely intact. The RJMEC has called for his release, arguing that a fair and inclusive process is essential to prevent renewed conflict.
But the deeper issue is structural. The transitional government’s mandate, designed to integrate rival forces and restore a single national chain of command, remains incomplete. Instead, both sides are rearming — a constitutional breach that undermines state legitimacy.
Regional actors, particularly the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which brokered the peace, face growing pressure to intervene decisively.
South Sudan’s instability is not just a domestic affair. Its collapse would reverberate across a volatile region already stretched by wars in Sudan and the Congo.
A renewed conflict could send hundreds of thousands fleeing into neighboring Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, destabilizing borders and humanitarian corridors.
The RJMEC’s report is more than an administrative rebuke — it is a final warning that South Sudan’s peace deal is disintegrating from within. Without swift international mediation, enforcement of disarmament provisions, and constitutional clarity on power-sharing, the world’s youngest nation may once again slide into war — a failure not just of leadership in Juba, but of the international system that pledged to help it stand.
