UN urges South Sudanese parties to embrace dialogue to avert relapse into war

19/3/2025 7:12

South Sudanese parties should direct all efforts to prevent a relapse into war, support the full implementation of the peace agreement, and progress the transition toward the country's first democratic elections, the United Nations top envoy in the country said on Tuesday.



Nicholas Haysom, special representative of the UN secretary-general to South Sudan, said the global body was concerned that South Sudan is poised on the brink of relapse into civil war, which threatens to erase the hard-won peace gains since the signing of the Revitalized Agreement in 2018.



"The parties must de-escalate the current political tensions now before it is too late. There is only one path out of this cycle of conflict, and that is through the Revitalized Agreement," Haysom told a virtual meeting of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council Meeting on South Sudan.



Haysom, also head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), stressed that the peace process and its mechanisms remain the key to the restoration of peace, and they are on the verge of collapse.