Rwanda to send extra troops to South Sudan

Rwanda plans to send more peacekeepers as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the acting Defence and military spokesperson, Col Rene Ngendahimana said.

He disclosed this on Thursday after the U.N chief, Herve Ladsous during a visit to South Sudan’s capital, Juba on Tuesday said that the first peacekeepers from Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh will begin arriving in the next few weeks.

Rwanda currently maintains 1,650 troops as part of UNMISS.

According to the UN, the under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told president Salva Kiir of South Sudan that it is clearer that ever that the problems the country faces must be resolved through politic rather than military means.

Ladsous said the UN was sparing no effort to speed up the deployment of the 4,000 extra troops of the Regional Protection Force earlier mandated by the Security Council.

“We are working actively on it, we did lose time because getting clearance, authorisations here was slow, but we are sparing no effort to speed up and in the next few weeks you will see the first vanguard of the Regional Protection Force being deployed,”

RWANDA PEACEKEEPERS IN SOUTH SUDAN COMMENDABLE https://t.co/LsQs5Fi85F pic.twitter.com/Tat7o7PLYa

— Rwanda (@RwandaRR) March 22, 2017

He noted that the deployment of the regional protection force is of a high priority item for the security council.
The troops from the three countries will later be followed by Ethiopian forces and troops from other countries.