After four months and the sacking of a government delegation, the stalled South Sudan peace talks resumed Wednesday in Kenya, the latest effort to end the conflict that has long crippled the African country’s economy.
The talks are taking place between South Sudan’s government and opposition groups that were not part of the 2018 agreement that ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people died. Dubbed Tumaini, which is Swahili for hope, the talks began in May and the sides signed a “commitment declaration” for peace.
They subsequently stalled, after South Sudanese President Salva Kiir sacked the previous government delegation to the talks. A new team was then appointed to represent the government side but it was unable to travel to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on two subsequent occasions.
While the 2018 peace agreement is yet to be fully implemented, South Sudan has postponed elections, scheduled for December 2024, to 2026. The elections are to be the first in South Sudan since its independence in 2011.
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