By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a ceasefire in South Sudan at the African Union (AU) Summit on Saturday, emphasised that all sides must stop the violence and commit to inclusive talks.
As the AU summit opened, at least four explosions were heard around government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) base in the city of Dilling in South Kordofan, as drones from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group targeted the city.
The African continent makes up about a fifth of the global population, with an estimated 1.4 billion people, about 400 million of whom are 15 to 35 years old.
Ramaphosa remarked on the AU’s Peace and Security Council’s report on the state of peace and security on the continent during the 39th ordinary session of the AU assembly heads of state and government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The summit brings together heads of state from the 55 member states of the African Union over two days.
He said South Africa, as the Regional Oversight Mechanism, will work with partners to secure lasting peace in the region.
Ramaphosa, drawing on South Africa’s experience in peacekeeping, stressed that stability in South Sudan is vital for the whole region.
As chair of the C5—which includes Algeria, Chad, Nigeria, and Rwanda—he pushed for the group to step up support for the peace process.
He said South Africa and the other members of the High-Level African Union Ad-hoc Committee of Five (C5) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are hosting a summit in Addis Ababa to “consolidate South Sudan peace”.
Turning to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ramaphosa condemned continued territorial incursions by armed groups in Kivu and Ituri, emphasising the need to uphold the country’s unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
His words echoed broader concerns raised by other leaders. African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf also highlighted multiple conflicts across Africa. “From Sudan to the Sahel, to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in Somalia and elsewhere, our people continue to pay the heavy price of instability,” he said.
Outgoing African Union Chair, Angola’s President Joao Lourenco, also emphasised the need to silence the guns across the continent, highlighting how peace is key to growth, especially in trouble spots like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, who attended the summit, also spoke on the need for peace, saying his government is committed to restoring calm not just at home but in neighbouring Sudan as well.
The 29-page U.N. report detailed a set of atrocities that ranged from mass killings and summary executions, sexual violence, abductions for ransom, torture and ill-treatment to detention and disappearances. In many cases, the attacks were ethnicity-motivated, it said.
The U.N. Human Rights Office said it documented the killing of at least 4,400 people inside el-Fasher between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, while more than 1,600 others were killed as they were trying to flee the RSF rampage.
The report said it drew its toll from interviews with 140 victims and witnesses which were “are consistent with independent analysis of contemporaneous satellite imagery and video footage.”
The report, however, warned that the actual scale of the death toll of the week-long offensive in el-Fasher was “undoubtedly significantly higher.”
The toll does not include at least 460 people who were killed by the RSF on Oct. 28 when they stormed the Saudi Maternity hospital, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Around 300 people were also killed in RSF shelling and drone attacks between Oct. 23 and Oct. 24 in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people, 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) northwest of el-Fasher, the U.N. Human Rights Office’ report said.