Students Want UN Mission Out Of The Country

This article was last updated on May 26, 2022

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The demonstration started from the University campus with students chanting the Head of UNMISS Hilde Johnson to leave the country.

Students were received at the main gate of UNMISS in Wau by the state (UNMISS) coordinator Ms. Winne Babihuga who promised to forward the student’s memo to the UN headquarters in New York.

“We have come out today as the citizens of South Sudan and students of University of Bahr el Ghazal to demonstrate against the champion act of the UN in supporting the rebels in South Sudan,” the students’ memo partly reads.

“On the 7th March 2014, 12 trucks mainly belonging to the UN carrying military equipments including anti-aircraft, landmines, PKMs, RPGs and other heavy weapons which UN claims responsibility for were discovered along Rumbek – Wau road by the national security.

“Did UN sign any deal with the government of south Sudan to bring in the country landmines or anti-aircraft? We condemn that.” On her side, Babihuga told demonstrators she would forward the memo to the UN Headquarters in New York.

“The UNMISS did not change its mandates in South Sudan. We are hand in hand working with South Sudan government in restoring peace and stability,”   she said. At the state Council of Ministers, the demonstrators were received by the state Deputy Governor Zackaria Garang Will.

The student’s call on the UN to leave the country stemmed from the recent discovery of suspicious military hardware transportation by UN personnel allegedly in Rumbek which was feared to be destined to the rebels.

Anti-government armed forces have been fighting President Kiir’s government since mid-December following a “Coup attempt” allegedly led by Dr. Riek Machar, an accusation he denied. 

According to the UNMISS spokesperson Ariane Quentier, the weapons belong to the UN Ghanaian peacekeepers who have been deployed on ground to Unity state’s capital Bentiu recently.

The Mission said it was a regrettable error in labelling and said a high level investigation by a team from the UN headquarters will be done urgently.

“In regard to these concrete evidences, there is no doubt that UNIMSS was a master planner of 15 December 2013 coup in Juba and incited Dr. Riek Machar to implement the action and all its statements were nothing but only fabrications that conceal their malicious intention,” said the students’ representative Mawien Ayom.

“Now since we have seen the danger of UNMISS toward our country, we are acrimoniously regretted to UNMISS and therefore, we are calling upon the government to take deed of terminating the UNMISS mandates in the south Sudan with an instantaneous effect of 72 hours,” he added.