The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has destroyed a assortment of deadly weapons confiscated from internally displaced people living at its civilian protection sites, a UN spokesman said here Tuesday.
The UNMISS “has destroyed 25 firearms and hundreds of knives, machetes and other weapons confiscated from internally displaced persons living in the UN protection-of-civilians sites in Juba,” South Sudan’s capital, Xinua quoted UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying at a daily news briefing here.
“The weapons were destroyed at a public event held Tuesday in the Mission’s Tomping site,” Dujarric said.
“These measures will maintain the civilian character of UNMISS protection of civilian sites,” the UN spokesman added.
The secretary-general’s special representative for South Sudan, Ellen Margrethe Loej, said that the mission had decided to destroy weapons in full public view to reassure all parties concerned that the weapons and ammunition will never be used to commit any acts of violence, including human rights violations,” .
Political in-fighting between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, started nearly a year ago and subsequently turned into a full-fledged conflict that has sent nearly 100,000 civilians fleeing to UNMISS bases around the country.
The crisis has uprooted some 1.5 million people and placed more than seven million at risk of hunger and disease.
UNMISS will hold another weapons-destroying event on Dec 10.
–IANS