UN Statement Warns of Renewed Conflict in South Sudan

Author: Vera Rousseff

March 4, 2026

HRRC strongly condemns the civilian attacks carried out by South Sudan’s government and calls on it to restore the peace framework outlined in the 2018 Revitalized Agreement. We urge regional actors, including the African Union, to work to restore restore the preexisting peace agreement in order to prevent human rights violations and avoid a wider regional conflict.

In Akobo, South Sudan, a group of internally displaced people gather at a church compound. [Image credit: Florence Miettaux/AP]

In a statement issued last Friday, February 27, the United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS) warned that South Sudan is now on a path toward a potentially “catastrophic” conflict. The warning is based on a new report, published on February 19, which details the “deteriorating human rights situation” in the country over the course of the last year. 

The statement highlights several “unmistakable” warning signs of renewed conflict, including the targeting of civilians and the detention of political opposition leaders. Over the past year,

CHRSS has documented an alarming pattern of ethnically and politically motivated attacks on civilians, largely committed by armed forces under the command of South Sudan’s ruling party. Military campaigns in the Jonglei and Upper Nile regions have resulted in mass executions and the widespread displacement of civilians, while aerial bombardments across the country have destroyed homes and hospitals. The statement also highlights incidents of boys and young men being abducted and forcibly recruited as soldiers, as well as patterns of conflict-related and ethnically motivated sexual violence against women. 

The renewed conflict risks dismantling the current peace agreement, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, which brought an end to five years of civil war when it was signed in 2018. The agreement established a governance structure which allowed South Sudan’s different political factions to share power, leading to the formation of a unity government in 2020. However, implementation of the 2018 Revitalized Agreement has been slow, and several key mechanisms have not been operationalized.

In its statement, CHRSS argued that the peace agreement is being systematically and deliberately undermined. The ruling party’s deployment of partisan forces and its decision to detain First Vice President Riek Machar, the country’s main opposition leader, reflect an erosion of important power-sharing and unifying mechanisms. The persistent failure to properly implement the 2018 Revitalized Agreement, the statement argues, “has directly fuelled renewed violence and eroded trust between the parties.”

The violence currently escalating in South Sudan has the potential to trigger wider regional instability. CHRSS notes that regional actors, such as Uganda, are already involved in the conflict, and South Sudanese youth are being actively recruited into the war in neighboring Sudan. “The risks now extend beyond South Sudan,” the statement reads.

CHRSS calls on regional actors and the African Union to press South Sudan’s ruling government to restore the 2018 Revitalized Agreement, stating that “decisive African leadership and principled international engagement” are needed to prevent further escalation. As CHRSS Chair Yasmin Sooka stated in her concluding remarks to the UN Human Rights Council, “History will record whether this moment was met with resolve—or with silence.”

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Glossary

• African Union (AU): an organization made up of African countries that works to promote peace, security, and cooperation across the continent.

• Aerial bombardments: attacks carried out from the air, usually by planes or helicopters dropping bombs on targets below.

• Catastrophic: extremely harmful or destructive, causing widespread damage or suffering.

• Civilian: a person who is not a member of the military or armed groups.

• Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS): a United Nations body that investigates and reports on human rights abuses in South Sudan.

• Conflict-related sexual violence: sexual violence that happens during or because of armed conflict, often used to terrorize communities.

• Detention: the act of holding someone in custody, often by government authorities.

• Deteriorating: getting worse over time.

• Displacement: when people are forced to leave their homes because of violence, conflict, or disaster.

• Escalation: an increase in the intensity or seriousness of a conflict or situation.

• Ethnically motivated: driven by hatred or bias against a specific ethnic group.

• Operationalized: put into action or made to work in practice, not just planned or promised.

• Partisan: strongly supporting one political group or side, often in a way that excludes others.

• Power-sharing: a political system in which different political groups share control of the government.

• Systematically: done in a planned, organized, and repeated way.

• United Nations (UN): an international organization made up of countries around the world that works to promote peace, security, and human rights.

• Unity government: a government made up of leaders from different political groups who agree to work together, often after a conflict.