Deng Dau Deng, deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Credit: Eye Radio.

The government of South Sudan has claimed that it cannot buy arms for the police force due to the UN arms embargo.

At the end of last month, the UN Security Council renewed by one year the arms embargo and targeted sanctions imposed on South Sudan.

The Council first imposed an arms embargo in 2018 and subsequently renewed it in 2019 to prevent a continuation of the country’s civil war.

The arms embargo empowers all UN Member States to prevent arms and related equipment of all types – including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and any spare parts – from entering South Sudan.

But last month, the human rights group Amnesty International said South Sudan violated the arms embargo and imported arms into the country.

However, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation – Deng Dau Deng now says the UN arms embargo and targeting sanctions have had a significant impact on the country’s capability to maintain security.

Deng claims the government of South Sudan is unable to arm the police due to the arms embargo.

“The civilians are more armed than the government, this is the challenge because we have been lock-in, we cannot access the international market, even just to arm the police for them to keep law and order is a big issue to us,” Deng said after a meeting with the US ambassador to Juba on Saturday.

“On targeted individual sanctions, I also informed the ambassador on how difficult it is for those individuals because even before the Covid-19 they were not allowed to travel.”

The deputy foreign minister appealed to the US government to campaign for the lifting of the arms embargo.

For his part, Ambassador Thomas Hushek says the main reason for renewing the arms embargo is to keep the peace process moving.

“Following the recent renewal of the arms embargo at the United Nations which we see as a step forward nevertheless for South Sudan, the resolution had good recognition of the progress made here with the peace process I think that is an important step forward and it sets out a plan to measure progress against the peace process that will eventually lead to the lifting of those arms embargo and sanctions to make the peace processes moving forward,” Ambassador Hushek explained.

“The main thing is to keep the peace process moving forward and that will help us on sorts of individual or bilateral as well as multilateral sanctions and improving the relationship,” he added.