Ahead of Southern Sudan’s official secession on Saturday (July 9), some humanitarian aid groups have raised concerns about alleged plans to reduce the number of peacekeeping troops the United Nations is planning to send to the soon-to-be independent state.
The U.N. Security Council had initially planned to deploy some 7,000 peacekeepers to Southern Sudan ahead of its independence, but some council members want to send fewer troops, a spokesperson for Oxfam International said on Wednesday (July 6), according to Reuters.
In a joint press release by several aid groups, the director for Africa of Human Rights Watch, Daniel Bekele, argued that the “increasing violence and human rights violations this year underscore the need for a robust and flexible peacekeeping presence in South Sudan.”
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