The conflict in South Sudan which broke out exactly two years ago has lasted much too long, the top UN official in the country, Ellen Loej, said in Juba today.

“Two years is much too long,” said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), in an interview with Radio Miraya. “The conflict has lasted much too and the suffering of the people has been terrible.” 

Describing the progress of the peace process as “too slow”, Ms. Loej said although the parties to the conflict had signed a permanent ceasefire, fighting had continued on the ground.

“I cannot repeat often enough that we need a complete stop in the fighting, full respect for the permanent ceasefire that the parties agreed to in the Agreement,” she said. 

The UNMISS Chief however noted that it was vital to look at the positive things and listed the  listing the signing of the Peace Agreement, agreement on security arrangements, and the first meeting of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC).

Ms. Loej however hoped that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - In Opposition which did not attend the meeting, would soon send an advance team to Juba so that mechanisms in the peace agreement could begin to function. 

“What we are trying to do is to urge the parties to implement the agreement they have signed,” she said. “What we hear, wherever we are in the country, is that … people want to be able to rebuild their lives in peace and pursue what the whole intention was when South Sudan became independent—a life in freedom, prosperity and peace.”

Asked what she felt was the biggest obstacle in implementing the peace process, the SRSG said different parties have different arguments and “it depends on who you talk to”.

“The important thing for me is that they should overcome those obstacles,” she said, stressing that it was vital for the opposition to send their advance team to Juba to participate in the JMEC meetings, as well as discussions on getting the ceasefire and transitional security arrangements up and running, and how to establish the Joint Integrated Police.

“It’s very important that he is the one who asks us what we need to support because we have pledged total support to his endeavors to move this process forward,” she said.

The SRSG said the mission’s work since the start of the conflict had involved urging the parties to sign a peace agreement and “to implement it in letter and spirit”, as well as protection of civilians, facilitating humanitarian access and documenting human rights abuses.

“I have to remind you as I have done every so often, protection of civilians is much more than opening the gate,” Ms. Loej emphasized. “… Yes, we have 185,000 today living in our site, but we are trying our very best also to project our presence outside the camp and we have recently established forward operating bases in the areas where the need is very acute, like in Leer County (Unity State) and Mundri (Western Equatoria State), all in the effort to try and protect civilians in need wherever they are.”

The top UN official in South Sudan said although humanitarian partners were doing their best, they were faced with challenges like raising funds, as well as lack of access due to poor infrastructure or insecurity or restriction by parties to the conflict. 

Agreeing that there had been some mistrust of the peacekeeping mission, Ms. Loej underscored that UNMISS is impartial and does not take any one side.

“We are doing our best to support the people of South Sudan who are in need … regardless of their political preference,” she said.

Ms. Loej said she hope that 2016 would be important for South Sudan and could one day be referred to as the year “we can fully say we left the dispute and the fighting behind us and we rally on moving South Sudan forward and developing South Sudan’s economy for the benefit of the people”. 

She added that both UNMISS and other UN agencies had a vital role to play in supporting the Transitional Government in implementing its agenda and that eventually, capacity building programmes would resume.

Noting that the UN Security Council is expected to adopt the Mission’s new mandate today, Ms. Loej said she expected that it would continue to focus on protection of civilians, support to monitoring of the ceasefire, human rights reporting and facilitation of delivery of humanitarian assistance.

“I’m also expecting that the Security Council will mandate us to provide support for the implementation of the peace agreement,” she said.