By Bida Elly David
President Salva Kiir has said the IGAD mediation team on Khartoum talks will never land the Sudanese Capital until the principals to the conflict render the green light for intervention noting that the ongoing situation is risky and brutal for the parties to agree.
President Kiir spoke during the dinner festival with the Muslim Community yesterday in Juba aimed at concluding the Ramadhan festive season of fasting.
Speaking during the occasion, President Kiir said that the IGAD team through his chairmanship has tried to cool the warring parties through a declaration of ceasefire but their efforts have been trashed without any compromise.
He said that he had severally tried to push the two leaders to cease hostilities but the two principals did not adhere to his call but rather pushed blame against one another.
Furthermore, Kiir said that despite loggerheads with the mediation team, he vowed as a neighbor, not to hesitate to push the two rivals to the table of dialogue.
“We as the committee formed from IGAD cannot go for mediation when there is war. We will wait until the warring parties give us green light to travel. The airport is currently under fire as both rivals continue exchanging bullets’’ Kiir said.
He said that the government of South Sudan will not tolerate seeing citizens battling food shortage, water, and medical services as an exchange of bullets remains a destructive order of the day noting that until the two parties declare the secession of hostilities, the mediation team will partake in dialogue.
“I communicated to both heads of the conflicting parties in Sudan and after accepting to declare a ceasefire, they also violated. Citizens are facing tragedies as there are no food, water, electricity and medical services for them yet war continues’’ Kiir said.
Kiir added that boycotting the cease-fire is a clear indication that both parties refused to surrender guns for the sake of peace to the citizens noting that it will be risky to respect the task of the IGAD being the peace monitors.
Sudan is still battling continuous war after conflicting parties turned off their ears in respect of the 24 hours of the ceasefire making South Sudan skeptical of civil lives as many died, were injured and others swim in a starvation pool. The 24-hour ceasefire – lobbied for by peace concerning Countries was supposed to come into effect at 6 p.m. local time (1600 GMT) but despite the efforts made, the concerned parties never reached into consensus rather smoke continued to evaporate as residents struggle with powers cuts without food, water and electricity.