Stephen Par Kuol, the Minister of Peace Building - courtesy

The minister of peacebuilding has called for the establishment of strong law enforcement agencies in order to stop the surge in violence across the country.

Stephen Par Kuol , the Minister of Peacebuilding stated that the failure of state institutions to function per their mandate is a major cause of conflicts among local communities.

He said there is a breakdown of institutional capacity to enforce law and order since 2013.

South Sudan has continued to witness rampant communal hostilities mainly orchestrated by armed youths and tribal militias over the last several months.

“These incidents can only be avoided only when we have strong state institutions and this will happen only after unification of the forces that have been fighting each other for the last seven years since 2013,” Minister Par told Eye Radio.

“We go about disarming our communities, what is happening in South Sudan does not happen in normal states, in states that are stable politically. What you see here is the manifestation of the failure of state institutions.

“Criminals are there in every society, most of what you see here are criminal activities that need law enforcement, intra-communal violence have been there but this has been exacerbated by the fact that youth are using weapons of war.

“The same weapon we have as government. The same weapons we have as the government and our communities have them.”

Mr. Par also called on parties to the 2018 revitalized peace agreement to urgently graduate the unified forces and initiate the healing and reconciliation efforts.

“We have been fighting ourselves for too long we need to dialogue, this transitional period for two years should have been wisely to dialogue and from here

“We must work to turn our youth into productive human beings, not destructive human beings, we need to move away from weapons of war and destruction.

“We need to think more about economic self-sufficiency. We need to dialogue to know ourselves, because we have known ourselves for only fighting ourselves for all these years.”