Report: South Sudan recruits new force, outside peace deal

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A new report says South Sudan’s National Security Service has recruited a force of 10,000 fighters in President Salva Kiir’s ethnic stronghold, outside the terms of the country’s peace deal.

The report by United Nations experts monitoring sanctions on South Sudan expresses concern over the slow implementation of the fragile deal signed in September 2018 to end five years of civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people.

The report says South Sudan’s government has shown little interest in abiding by the spirit of the agreement on security and other arrangements, putting the deal in peril and posing an “immediate threat” to the country’s fragile peace.

A crucial deadline to form a coalition government was missed this month after opposition leader Riek Machar criticized slow progress in security arrangements.