A coalition of South Sudanese women’s groups on Wednesday convened a press conference in Juba to demand that leaders of the country’s two warring factions, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, reach a peace agreement at talks in Addis Ababa.
They announced the following message to Kiir and Machar:
“Stop the violence so that our children go back to school. Stop the war to allow the IDPs to go home and live with dignity. Stop the war to ensure the refugees come back home. Stop the war to give a way for all South Sudanese to regain their identity and dignity.”
This is the second peace petition by the women’s group, the South Sudan Women Platform for Peace. In late July over 100 members held a protest asking to present a peace petition to President Salva Kiir.
They were not satisfied when the Speaker of the National Assembly Manasseh Magok appeared to receive the petition on the president’s behalf, instead demanding to meet Kiir personally, as well as his vice president.
As reported by local media on 26 July, the women labeled the South Sudanese president “a stubborn child who does not listen to his mothers’ call.”
One of the group’s leaders Angelina Daniel reiterated the same point at the press conference on Wednesday, saying their appeal for peace has met with deaf ears, noting that the president had failed to attend to them.
Meanwhile, they are vowing more protests should they continue to be ignored.
“The women vowed to storm the warring leaders’ premises if not listened to through the press,” the local Catholic Radio Network reported.
Dudu Sebit, another member of the group, said they are denouncing losses of lives and misery of their children. She said they do not want to witness more atrocities.
In another development, civil society leader Deng Athuai, who was shot in the leg by an unknown attacker last Friday night, is calling on the international community to impose sanctions on leaders of the warring factions.
Speaking from his hospital bed to Radio Tamazuj, he urged other nations to seize bank accounts of South Sudanese politicians and to expel their children from their countries, so that they can return to South Sudan to face the same sufferings of disease, hunger and violence as ordinary citizens.
He was referring to the fact that many South Sudanese leaders send their children abroad rather than raising them in South Sudan itself.
Photo: Women protesting at the John Garang Memorial in Juba, 26 July 2014 (Radio Tamazuj)
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Dinka and Nuer women meet for peace in Bor (2 Aug.)