​U.N. approves sending 4,000 peacekeepers to South Sudan

Baku. 13 August. REPORT.AZ/ The U.N. Security Council voted Friday to strengthen its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, where an outbreak of violence has sparked concerns about a resumption of civil war.

Report informs citing BBC, in additional, 4,000 peacekeepers will be dispatched, making the total deployment 17,000 troops, and U.N. forces will be asked to take more “proactive” measures to protect civilians. The vote came as the United Nations is facing criticism over its failure to protect South Sudanese civilians and to use appropriate force when its installations come under fire, as they did in the capital city, Juba, last month.

The South Sudanese government has expressed opposition to the expansion to the U.N. expanded mission. During and after the most recent clashes, government forces have restricted the movement of humanitarian workers, even looting a World Food Program warehouse holding rations that would have fed 220,000 people for a month. It is rare for government forces themselves to be among the hostile actors that peacekeepers are sent to pacify.

The council did not vote on whether to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan, as the head of U.N. peacekeeping forces, Hervé Ladsous, has urged.

Last week, the United Nations released a report on an investigation into an attack by South Sudanese soldiers and their allies in February on a U.N. camp for displaced civilians in Malakal in South Sudan. Dozens of civilians in the camp were killed. Peacekeepers there failed because of a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage,” the inquiry found.