A team from the Inter-governmental  Authority on Development (IGAD) mediation secretariat arrived in South Sudan on 13 October to follow up on implementation of the peace agreement, a secretariat official said in Juba today.

Hailemichael Gebreselasie, Communications Officer for the IGAD Office of the Special Envoys for South Sudan, told Radio Miraya that the six-man delegation was led by Chief of Staff for the mediation secretariat Abdeta Beyene.

He added that the team would meet with government officials, other stakeholders and partners of the peace process like UNMISS.

“We will highlight and discuss with them how to better implement this peace process so we hope that the parties will implement this peace process,” he said.

Mr. Gebreselasie noted that during the three-day visit, the delegation, hoped that they would be able to remove the obstacles and expedite the full implementation of the deal.

“There is a critical problem especially with the security issue,” he said. “The SPLM-IO (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition) has not signed that minute of the workshop but still there is a lot of engagement from the IGAD mediation as well as the IGAD partners.”

Last week, the UN Security Council extended the UNMISS mandate to 15 December and adjusted the mission’s activities to include support to the implementation of the peace agreement.

In the resolution, the Council requested and encouraged the Special Representative of the Secretary General to “exercise her good offices to lead the UN system in South Sudan in assisting IGAD, the African Union and other actors as well as the parties, with swift implementation of the Agreement and to promote reconciliation”.

The resolution also tasked the peacekeeping mission to monitor and report on the withdrawal of all state and not-state actors allied to either party in the conflict from the territory of South Sudan, with the exception of Western Equatoria State based on agreements entered into by the South Sudan government before the current crisis.

On 12 October, the Uganda government announced that its forces had started leaving South Sudan. The government spokesperson, Ofwono Opondo, said the withdrawal of the estimated 2000 troops is expected to be completed by the first week of November.

The council also requested the Secretary-General to prioritize the complete deployment of UNMISS personnel to the authorized military and police strength, including tactical military helicopters and unarmed unmanned aerial systems.

Responding to government questioning of the provision that gave the mission clearance to use drones, UNMISS spokesperson Arianne Quentier explained that the drones are needed to access hard to reach parts of the country.

“The resolution is suggesting and it is very clear in its stake is that there should be use of aerial unmanned aircraft (drones) in order to be able to better fulfill the protection of civilians mandate by being able to better know and assess the situation through those unmanned air vehicles … throughout the country,” she said. “This is mostly because South Sudan is such a difficult country to access, such a difficult country to patrol. The same drones have been deployed in UN mission in Mali also in Eastern DRC also exactly for the same reason.”