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By Richard Connor with AFP, AP, dpa
Edited by Louis Oelofse
Dated Saturday, 22 March 2025 - full copy:
Berlin says it is temporarily shuttering its embassy in South Sudan amid safety concerns over a deteriorating security situation. Civil war once again looks in the world's youngest country.
The German Foreign Office on Saturday said it would temporarily close its embassy in South Sudan's capital, Juba, in light of renewed and escalating violence.
While President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his erstwhile opponent Riek Machar formed a joint government of national unity in 2020, the accord now threatens to collapse.
What the German government said
"After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is once again on the brink of civil war," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced.
"President Kiir and Vice President Machar are plunging the country into a spiral of violence. They have a responsibility to stop the senseless violence and finally implement the peace agreement," Baerbock continued.
The minister said the safety of employees was the top priority.
Why is South Sudan getting dangerous again?
South Sudan, with a population of around eleven million, went through a bloody civil war — with Kiir and Machar on opposite sides — after gaining independence from its northern neighbor Sudan in 2011.
Although they agreed to form a transitional government after a 2018 peace deal, with Machar as vice president, that arrangement looks perilously close to failing.
For weeks, a militia from the Nuer ethnic group, to which Machar belongs, has been fighting government soldiers on the border with Ethiopia.
The army accuses Machar's party of fueling the conflict, while Machar accuses Kiir of wanting to depose his supporters.
While the fighting is more than 1,300 kilometers (about 800 miles) from the capital, the sparks threaten to spread to other parts of the country. Warring parties in neighboring Sudan are also threatening to intervene.
German diplomats, together with representatives from Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, the USA, and the EU, have offered to mediate between Kiir and Machar.
View original: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shuts-south-sudan-embassy-amid-civil-war-fears/a-72007695
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Related
Report from and by The Associated Press (AP)
Dated Saturday, 22 March 2025 11:43 am - full copy:
Germany closes its embassy in South Sudan as it teeters on the brink of civil war
BERLIN — The German government said Saturday that it is temporarily closing its embassy in South Sudan.
“After years of fragile peace, South Sudan is once again on the brink of civil war,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on social media platform Bluesky.
The crisis team of the German Foreign Office "has therefore decided to close the embassy in the capital Juba for the time being. The safety of the employees has top priority," she added.
Baerbock also wrote that South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his rival, Vice President Riek Machar, “are plunging the country into a spiral of violence. They have a responsibility to stop the senseless violence and finally implement the peace agreement.”
South Sudan has been plagued by political instability and violence since it gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
In 2018, a peace deal signed between Machar and Kiir ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people were killed. Machar serves as the country’s first vice president in a government of national unity, even though his political group opposes Kiir.
The political rivalry between the two men is widely seen as a major obstacle to peace in South Sudan, with Kiir suspicious of his deputy’s ambitions and Machar calling Kiir a dictator.
Image: Children sit and play on the remains of a tank, at the river port in Renk, South Sudan on May 17, 2023. Credit: AP/Sam Mednick
View original: https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/germany-south-sudan-war-embassy-e94461
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Notice on German Embassy in Juba, South Sudan and Kampala, Uganda
Image source: Violet IKong https://www.linkedin.com/posts/violet-ikong-3b7193166_saesdsudan-activity-7309312344772243456-bv2_
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Report from Deutsche Welle (DW)
By Beni van Essen 1 week ago
Why is South Sudan on edge again?
South Sudan’s security situation is volatile, as civil war-time leadership divisions deepen.
The UN has expressed concern, regional mediators are scrambling and a US evacuation is underway.
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/why-is-south-sudan-on-edge-again/ar-AA1AMtRL
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