MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) — South Sudan's neighbors must urge the United Nations to introduce an arms embargo in order to curb the violence in the country, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and more than 50 local and international human rights and humanitarian organizations said in a petition Wednesday.
"South Sudanese civilians are desperate and need regional leadership to help protect them. More weapons will mean these civilians will face more abusive attacks: killings, rape, burnings, pillage. Now is the time to take action," Geoffrey Duke, secretariat team leader at the South Sudan Action Network on Small Arms, was quoted as saying by HRW on its website.
Regional leaders are set to meet on November 6 at a summit of the Intergovernmental Authority of Development (IGAD) and should emerge from the talks with "a clear request to the UN Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on South Sudan," HRW said.
The petition also calls for IGAD to make reports by its ceasefire monitors in South Sudan publicly available.
Violence erupted in South Sudan between the government and the opposition in December, when the country's president, Salva Kiir, accused his ex-deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war.
