South Sudanese government forces have acquired two jet fighters and truckloads of small arms ammunition and wereseeking to manufacture… bullets, while opposition troops have not received any significant arms shipments, U.N. sanctions monitors said in a confidential report on Thursday.
The report say that armed government actors were imposing “debilitating movement restrictions” on U.N. peacekeepers and warned that the economy of the world’s newest nation has effectively collapsed due to government policies that include buying weapons instead of funding social services.
There are reports that said government troops have made significant, ongoing arms procurements including the likely recent acquisition of two L-39 fighter jets.
Two truckloads of ammunition were transferred to the capital Juba from Uganda in June, while late last year South Sudanese army chief Paul Malong asked a Lebanese company to begin developing a small ‘arms ammunition manufacturing facility in Juba, the monitors said.
The U.N. Security Council has long threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan after the country spiraled into civil war in 2013, but veto powers Russia and China are wary that such a move would benefit opposition fighters because it would be harder to monitor them than to police the government.
A political rivalry between President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and opposition leader Riek Machar, a Nuer, sparked the civil war. The pair signed a shaky peace deal a year ago, but fighting has continued. Machar fled the country after the violence between their troops erupted in July.