UN Day Celebration in Malakal PoC

24 Oct 2016

UN Day Celebration in Malakal PoC

The UN Mission in South Sudan - UNMISS, has condemned the rising wave of insecurity in parts of the country including in Mayom County, where an attack on a convoy in Adok earlier in the week left a Member of Parliament wounded. The injured MP was treated in a clinic run by the UN Mission in South Sudan.

UNMISS has cautioned that the rhetoric of incitement does not help and does not answer the problems of South Sudan.

Speaking to Miraya Breakfast show, Yasmina Bouziane, UNMISS Principal Public Information officer, stressed the need to cease any hostilities between armed combatants and reiterated the need for commanders to control their forces and desist from attacking unarmed civilians.

The UN Mission in South Sudan - UNMISS, has condemned the rising wave of insecurity in parts of the country including in Mayom County, where an attack on a convoy in Adok earlier in the week left a Member of Parliament wounded. The injured MP was treated in a clinic run by the UN Mission in South Sudan.

UNMISS has cautioned that the rhetoric of incitement does not help and does not answer the problems of South Sudan.

Speaking to Miraya Breakfast show, Yasmina Bouziane, UNMISS Principal Public Information officer, stressed the need to cease any hostilities between armed combatants and reiterated the need for commanders to control their forces and desist from attacking unarmed civilians.

Sixteen students from the University of Juba are currently giving up a week of their school programme to develop mobile phone applications for peace building and literacy in South Sudan.

The Boot Camp is the brainchild of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – UNESCO and the United Nations Development Program – UNDP.

With support from Web Africa, a Nairobi based ICT organization; the Students are going through an extensive workshop on mobile app development. 

Awol Endris, UNESCO Education Specialist, said the students will be exposed to all aspects of developing applications that relevant to share peace messages through mobile phones.

“There are two applications that are being developed; the PeaceApp and the LiteracyApp and we decided to work on these two applications because the subjects of these two applications would help in spreading messages of peace,” said Edris.

He hopes that the apps will provide the youth with an opportunity to use their mobile phones to improve literacy and numeric skills.

UNDP’s Peace Building Specialist, Julia Odumuyiwa, explained that the apps are designed to support efforts to build a culture of peace in South Sudan and engage young people to learn more about peace building and what role they can play.

When completed, the apps will be uploaded on the internet and users will be able to download them on their smartphones.

“It is important the student here they improve their skills in developing those applications we want to bring out the content and we also want the wider community to benefit from this,” said Julia.

Sebit Clement Juma and Poni Wani, both fresh graduates of computer science from the University of Juba, believe that the peace and literacy apps will communicate information to promote the concept of peace in South Sudan.

“We hope that this technology will change the people, what we have in mind is to send positive peace messages using technology applications developed by South Sudanese.”

 

 

 

The Executive Director of the Community for Progress Organization, is lobbying a US-based social media platform, Facebook, to either block or censor pages that incite and promote hate speech in South Sudan. 

Civil Society leader, Edmund Yakani, met with the US Ambassador to the United Nation, Samantha Power, and discussed the vital need to end hate speech and ethnic targeting in the country.

During the meeting in New York City, last week, Yakani briefed Ambassador Power about the dangers social media is posing in South Sudan.  Yakani noted that hate speech is being generated by politically minded people who “open various social media accounts and post hate motivated messaging, slogans and pictures, causing panic in the country.”

Speaking to Radio Miraya, Yakani said that civil society is trying to ensure online platforms like Facebook cease to offer opportunities for online hate speech.

“Let them help us in terms of social media control, the idea is that if there is anything about South Sudan, it categorizes ethnicity it categorizes hate speech, like uploading wrong pictures let them help us by blocking it,” said Yakani. He acknowledged that the problem of hate speech must be dealt with because it is becoming increasingly dangerous.

“There is an urgent need to deal with hate speech and ethnic targeting,” said Yakani “violence is not an option, we deserve to live together peacefully,” he stressed.

As part of the steps being taken to control hate speech, civil society organizations in South Sudan must send vital messages to young people across the country stressing,  “hate speech is not the best way to deal with issues,” said Yakani.

In a related development, the UN High commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein has warned that an increase in hate speech and the ultimate incitement of violence in South Sudan is highly dangerous and could very well result in mass atrocities if not reined in immediately.

Zeid urged President Salva Kiir and all leaders with influence to urgently and unambiguously condemn the incitement to violence and to take urgent measures to defuse the tensions.

 

 

 

On his part, the Chairman of Peace and Security  Council of the IDPS in UNMISS’s camp Mathew Choul acknowledged the role of United Nations  in providing security and safety among other necessities to the internal displaced Persons in the  UN Camp site in Upper Nile.

 “I’m talking about the achievements of the United Nations that I benefited herein. The United  Nations has achieved many ranges and among them is the Protection of Civilians like those vulnerable IDPS who fled from the violence occurred in the Country. For us as Internal displaced Persons IDPS in Malakal, we have benefited a lot from the United Nations because we felt like born again children.”

United Nations Day is  devoted  to making known to people of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations   Organization.  The    United    Nations    Mission    in    South Sudan UNMISS established following independence of   South Sudan to support peace agreement in the Country.