Addis Ababa: South Sudan's escalating political crisis is driving renewed armed violence, compounding already dire human rights and humanitarian conditions, while heightening regional instability, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned today.
According to African Press Organization, despite one decade of efforts by the African Union and regional actors to support the peace process, South Sudan's leaders have deliberately stalled progress and brought South Sudan to yet another precipice. Armed clashes are occurring on a scale not seen since a cessation of hostilities was signed in 2017, with civilians bearing the brunt of human rights violations and displacements.
Concluding its mission to the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Commission underscored that South Sudan's justice and accountability vacuum continues to fuel political intransigence, impunity, conflict, and corruption. The latest political fracture at the center has emboldened armed groups, triggered renewed conflicts, and displaced thousands. As highlighted in the Commission's recent report, "Plundering a Nation: How rampant corruption unleashed a human rights crisis in South Sudan," grand corruption and systematic diversion of public resources remain a key driver of conflict, depriving South Sudanese of their most basic rights.
Renewed armed clashes have forced thousands of South Sudanese to flee once more. In 2025 alone, an estimated 300,000 South Sudanese fled the country, largely due to the increasing conflict: with 148,000 new arrivals into Sudan; 50,000 to Ethiopia; 50,000 to Uganda; 30,000 to the Democratic Republic of Congo; and 25,000 to Kenya. Their protection and survival continue to fall upon the region, which now hosts more than 2.5 million South Sudanese refugees.
South Sudan is also grappling with an internally displaced population of 2 million, while hosting an additional 560,000 refugees fleeing from the war in Sudan. Women remain disproportionately affected, bearing the greatest burdens and risks of forcible displacement.
The mounting armed clashes, mass displacement, and fracturing of a peace agreement signed seven years ago demonstrate that South Sudan cannot rebuild without stability and justice, said Commissioner Carlos Castresana Fernández. Credible and independent mechanisms for justice and accountability are needed to deter the repeated cycles of atrocities, break cycles of impunity, and heal the wounds of war. The AU and regional partners must act now - not only to prevent another war, but to build the foundations of a just peace, based on the rule of law.
In Addis Ababa, the Commission consulted with the AU Ad Hoc Committee on South Sudan (C5 group), members of the AU Peace and Security Council, African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, diplomats, UN, IGAD, and senior AU officials, including from the Office of the Legal Counsel. The Commission stressed the need for intensified regional efforts to de-escalate and address political tensions and surging armed contestation in South Sudan and called for sustained progress to advance a holistic transitional justice agenda. It urged the Office of the Legal Counsel to expedite the development of broad guidelines for the establishment of the Hybrid Court to complement ongoing processes to set up the Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing and the Compensation and Reparation Authority.
With members of the African Union Peace and Security Council and the United Nations Security Council set to meet in Addis Ababa later this week for their annual joint seminar and consultative session, the Commission urged both Councils to take decisive and coordinated action to address South Sudan's escalating crisis. The Commission called on them to place justice and accountability - including the prompt establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan - at the center of their deliberations, recognizing that impunity and corruption remain the principal obstacles to peace, stability, and human rights in South Sudan.
The Commission underlined that only an inclusive and credible political transition, supported by the AU, IGAD, the United Nations, and guarantors of the peace agreement, working in tandem with the international community, can prevent further deterioration and violations. It urged sustained and focused diplomatic engagement to ensure that all actors, including armed and political groups currently outside the peace framework, are brought into a consensus-based process committed to peace and human rights.
The crisis unfolding in South Sudan is the result of deliberate choices made by its leaders to put their interests above those of their people, said Commissioner Sooka. The region and the international community must now prevail upon South Sudan's leaders to make a different choice - one that puts their people first.