South Sudan bishops offer to mediate to stop ‘catastrophic’ violence

‘We caution our leaders: if South Sudan returns to full-scale violence, the consequences will be catastrophic.’

Catholic bishops in South Sudan offered to mediate between President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar to prevent growing hostilities between them descending into war.

Kiir placed Machar under house arrest on 26 March, threatening the 2018 Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) which ended the civil war they fought two years after the country’s independence in 2011.

Machar’s allies said the arrest broke the R-ARCSS, but the bishops urged Kiir and all other political leaders to honour their sacred obligation to the people of South Sudan and resist the temptation to revert to arms. In a statement the same day, Bishop Christian Carlassare of Bentiu asked his diocese “to pray every day for peace”.

“We caution our leaders: if South Sudan returns to full-scale violence, the consequences will be catastrophic,” said a statement from the Sudan and South Sudan Bishops’ Conference, signed by its president Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of Juba on 28 March. “As shepherds of the Church, we stand ready to mediate dialogue.”

The conflict started in early March after the White Army, a Nuer ethnic militia, overran units of South Sudan People’s Defence Forces in Nasir County in Upper Nile State, near Ethiopia.  

Kiir’s government accused Machar, a member of the Nuer ethnic community, of supporting the White Army. On 7 March, a South Sudanese general and 27 soldiers were killed when a UN helicopter on a rescue mission was shot down on in fierce fighting between the army and the militia.

The government also arrested other opposition leaders as he mounted aerial bombardment in Nasir County, with support from Ugandan forces. Church sources said the bombardment killed and wounded civilians as it displaced many from their homes. Several foreign governments evacuated their embassies as the fighting worsened.

“The arrest of opposition leaders and the involvement of foreign military forces, especially the deployment of the Uganda People’s Defence Force has only served to worsen fear and mistrust,” said Cardinal Mulla, warning that such actions risked turning the country into a battle ground for external interests and political manipulation.

“The people of South Sudan have suffered too long,” the statement continued. “War has taken their children, their homes, their future, and yet again, the dark clouds of conflict hover over our nation.”

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