Africa Business

A UN-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat destined for millions of hungry people in Ethiopia docked in neighbouring Djibouti on Tuesday.

The bulk carrier MV Brave Commander arrived in the Horn of Africa port city two weeks after leaving a Black Sea port in Ukraine, the UN’s World Food Programme said.

“The food on the Brave Commander will feed 1.5 million people for one month in Ethiopia,” WFP’s regional director for East Africa, Mike Dunford, said in video footage provided by the agency from the port.

“So this makes a very big impact for those people who currently have nothing. And now WFP will be able to provide them with their basic needs.”

Ethiopia, along with Kenya and Somalia, is in the grip of a devastating drought that has left 22 million people at risk of starvation across the Horn of Africa, the WFP said earlier this month.

The WFP said the wheat from the Brave Commander was being transported to its operations in Ethiopia.

It was not immediately clear whether the delivery would be affected by a resumption of fighting between government forces and Tigrayan rebels in the north of the country.

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, was forced to halt almost all deliveries after Russia’s invasion in February, raising fears of a global food crisis.

But exports of grain, food and fertilisers from three Black Sea ports resumed at the start of this month under a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, brokered by the UN and Turkey in July.

The agreement lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and set terms for millions of tonnes of wheat and other grain to start flowing from silos and ports.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, welcoming the ship’s arrival and Djibouti’s role, said the United States will be “closely monitoring Russia’s adherence” to the deal.

“We call on Russia to immediately cease its war on Ukraine, which would do much to address the recent spike in global food insecurity,” Blinken said in a statement.

According to figures late last week from the Joint Coordination Centre which manages the sea corridor, more than 720,000 tonnes of grain have already left Ukraine.

The WFP said the Djibouti port is one of the main corridors it uses for its operations across Eastern and Central Africa, handling 960,000 tonnes of food commodities in 2021. 

– ‘No end in sight’ –

The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned last week that the situation is set to get even worse with a fifth consecutive failed rainy season.

“There is still no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources needed to save lives and stop people plunging into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation,” WFP executive director David Beasley said earlier this month.

The WFP has warned that famine is a “serious risk,” particularly in Somalia where nearly half the population of 15 million is seriously hungry.

The WFP says food insecurity and malnutrition are a major concern across Ethiopia, with an estimated 20.4 million people in need of food support, including those forced from their homes by the conflict in the north as well as the severe drought in the south and southeast.

Northern Ethiopia has been wracked by war since November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after what he said were attacks by the rebels on federal army camps.

South African actress Charlbi Dean — who appeared in Palme d’Or winning film “Triangle of Sadness” — has died at the age of 32, her representative said Tuesday.

“It’s devastating,” the publicist told AFP via email, confirming a TMZ report that Dean had passed away on Monday from a sudden unexpected illness.

The celebrity website and Hollywood publication Deadline said that Dean, who was also a model, had died in New York City.

Neither the representative nor the reports provided any details on the illness that caused her death.

Dean co-starred alongside Woody Harrelson and Harris Dickinson in Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s “Triangle of Sadness.”

The sharp satire about class conflict won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May this year.

In the film, Dean plays Yaya, a model who is invited onto a cruise for the ultra-rich who find their status suddenly undermined by unexpected events.

Dean was born on February 5, 1990 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Before her turn in “Triangle of Sadness,” she was best known for playing Syonide in The CW’s DC Comics-based series “Black Lightning.”

She also appeared in “Spud” (2010), “Don’t Sleep” (2017) and “Blood in the Water” (2016).

In October 2008, she was hospitalized after surviving a car crash with fellow model Ashton Schnehage, according to the movie database site IMDb.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday he was “ready” to give an explanation and be held accountable over allegations he concealed a multi-million-dollar cash heist at his luxury farmhouse, but only after probes concluded.

Responding to parliament questions on the case, Ramaphosa said he was cooperating with authorities, but declined to give a detailed answer.

“The most appropriate response from my side is for the law to take its own course,” Ramaphosa told a fiery parliament session via video link, with many opposition lawmakers appearing unhappy with his answer.

“I stand ready to cooperate and also to give an explanation,” he said.

As for being questioned by parliament, “I stand ready to cooperate with that process as well, and will be ready to be fully accountable.”

But, he added, he had been advised to wait until the investigators had finished their work.

“I have been counselled… that it is best to address this matter when those processes have been done,” he said.

A scandal erupted in June after former national spy boss Arthur Fraser filed a police complaint, alleging that robbers broke into Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm in the northeast of the country, where they found and stole $4 million in cash hidden in furniture. 

Fraser alleged that Ramaphosa hid the robbery from police and the tax authorities, and instead organised the kidnapping and questioning of the robbers, and then bribed them into silence.

The president has acknowledged a burglary but denies the accusations of kidnapping and bribery, saying he reported the break-in to the police. 

He has also disputed the amount of money involved, and said the cash came from legitimate sales of game from his animal-breeding farm.

South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog and the police have opened probes.

The case has piled pressure on the president amid heightened tensions within the ruling African National Congress party.

Thousands of fighters including former rebels from rival camps in South Sudan’s civil war were integrated into the country’s army in a long-overdue graduation ceremony on Tuesday.

The unification of forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival, Vice President Riek Machar, was a key condition of the 2018 peace deal that ended the brutal five-year conflict in which nearly 400,000 people died.

Since achieving independence in 2011 from Sudan, the world’s youngest nation has lurched from crisis to crisis, battling flooding, hunger, ethnic violence and political turmoil.

Nearly 22,000 men and women — drawn from Kiir and Machar’s parties as well as the South Sudan Opposition Alliance — participated in Tuesday’s proceedings, which were originally scheduled to take place in 2019 according to the peace deal.

But years of deadlock between the two men over the division of senior posts in the unified armed forces command meant that they only inked an agreement on the issue in April this year.

The delays have fuelled frustration in the international community as explosions of violence threaten to undo even fragile gains.

Thousands of former rebels swore an oath of loyalty in a ceremony held under tight security at Juba’s John Garang Mausoleum — built in honour of South Sudan’s independence hero who died in 2005.

“From today you are not a military wing of any of the parties to the conflict,” Kiir told the uniformed graduates.

“Now you belong to the Republic of South Sudan and its people,” he said before an audience that included diplomats and foreign dignitaries such as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

The ceremony came weeks after the country’s leaders — appointed to run a transitional government — announced that they would remain in power two years beyond an agreed deadline, sparking international concern.

The transition period was meant to conclude with elections in December this year, but the government has so far failed to meet core provisions of the 2018 deal, including drafting a constitution.

In a speech at the Juba ceremony, Machar urged those “whose confidence has been shaken by the slow implementation for this agreement… to continue (to) support the implementation of this agreement.”

Nicholas Haysom, the UN envoy to South Sudan, said he hoped the unified forces would “play a critical role in building democracy”, with the country now due to hold elections only in December 2024.

Another 30,000 forces were also due to graduate in the coming days in training camps around the country, with Kiir saying that flooding had made it difficult to access some of the sites.

In addition to joining the army and the police, the new graduates have also been integrated into the VIP protection force, the wildlife service, the civil defence and other organisations responsible for national security.

– Sticks not guns –

The addition of tens of thousands of former rebels to the government’s payroll will add to already crushing economic challenges — civil servants have been unpaid for months.

But the move was nevertheless met with optimism in some quarters, with one former rebel telling AFP he was excited to join the police force.

“I am looking forward to serving my people. I just want to tell our people that finally peace has come after a long struggle,” said the former rebel who only identified himself as John, citing government restrictions.

Many of the new graduates carried sticks instead of guns at the ceremony, because of a years-long arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.

The government has repeatedly urged the United Nations to lift the embargo, even as deadly violence continues to roil the country.

“It is now high time for them to approve the purchase of the arms… because these security forces cannot be security forces if they are not properly armed,” Information Minister Michael Makuei told AFP.

The United Nations has regularly criticised South Sudan’s leadership for its role in stoking violence, cracking down on political freedoms and plundering public coffers.

It has also accused the government of rights violations amounting to war crimes over deadly attacks in the southwest last year.

The UN’s World Food Programme warned in March that over 70 percent of South Sudan’s 11 million people would face extreme hunger this year because of natural disasters and violence.

The United States last month pulled out of two peace process monitoring organisations in South Sudan due to the government’s failure to meet reform milestones, citing a “lack of sustained progress”.

Tigrayan rebels said Tuesday they intended to advance further into neighbouring regions of northern Ethiopia but were still open to peace talks after fighting erupted last week and put paid to a five-month-long truce.

The government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have each blamed the other for unleashing the renewed hostilities in areas bordering the southeastern tip of Tigray.

“We are fighting a defensive war,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said at a press conference broadcast online by the local Tigrai TV channel, adding: “We will remain open for any negotiations.”

Residents as well as diplomatic and humanitarian sources have said that in recent days TPLF fighters have pushed about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south from Tigray into Amhara as well as to the southeast into Afar, sending many people fleeing.

The fresh combat has shattered a truce announced in late March and cast a shadow over international efforts to try to end the nearly 22-month conflict in the north of Africa’s second most populous country.

Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and it is not possible to independently verify the situation on the ground or the claims by the warring sides.

“We have defended our positions and we are now launching a counter-offensive,” Getachew said. 

“Abiy keeps making miscalculation after miscalculation, he keeps sending reinforcements and we’ll continue to neutralise (them) and that will take us probably deeper and deeper into Amhara region.”

– Roads ‘clogged with fleeing people’ –

Abiy’s government announced Saturday that federal forces had pulled back from the town of Kobo to avoid “mass casualties”.

Getachew said Tuesday a significant part of the North Wollo zone in Amhara was in rebel hands although the TPLF did not want to control the area.

He also accused the Abiy government of hoodwinking the international community into believing it was “serious about peace” and said the rebels had no option but to protect their “safety and security”.     

In response, the Government Communication Service said: “The federal government is still committed to the peaceful resolution to the conflict that was once again initiated by the TPLF terrorist group.”

A local NGO active in Afar, the APDA, said on Twitter it had counted about 18,000 people displaced by the recent fighting in the region, mainly women and children, and that roads in one area were “clogged with fleeing people”. 

It said the TPLF was apparently advancing towards Keliwan, a town in Afar to the direct east of Kobo, and that people were evacuating.

– Calls for restraint –

The war has killed untold numbers of civilians and left millions in need of humanitarian aid across the north.

Since the latest combat flared, the international community has issued appeals for restraint, including from UN chief Antonio Guterres and the African Union, which is leading the drive for peace under Horn of Africa envoy Olusegun Obasanjo.

Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed last week that he had spoken to Abiy as well as TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities “as well as the creation of conditions to restart an effective political dialogue”.

Since June both warring sides had evoked the possibility of peace talks, with Debretsion disclosing last week that “two rounds of confidential face-to-face” meetings with top civilian and military officials had taken place, the first acknowledgement by either side of direct contracts.

The rivals have been at odds over who should lead negotiations, with Abiy’s government saying Obasanjo should broker any dialogue while the TPLF wanted Kenya’s outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta to mediate and has also called for the restoration of basic services to Tigray.

The March truce had allowed the resumption of international aid convoys to Tigray that had been halted for three months, while the region remains without access to basic services and struggling with food and fuel shortages.

Abiy, a Nobel Peace laureate, sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF in response to what he said were rebel attacks on federal army camps after months of tensions with the party that dominated Ethiopian politics for three decades until he took power in 2018.

The TPLF mounted a comeback, recapturing most of Tigray in June 2021 and expanding into Afar and Amhara, before the fighting reached a stalemate.

Angola’s biggest opposition party has vowed to contest last week’s election results, which saw the long-ruling MPLA win by a significantly reduced majority.

The August 24 elections were the most hotly contested in the oil-rich country since its first multi-party vote in 1992. 

Results declared Monday placed the Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) as the winner with 51.17 percent of the vote, securing a second term for President Joao Lourenco. 

But the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) said it “does not recognise the results” from the national electoral commission.

It vowed to file a legal claim “which will have the effect of suspending the declaration of the final results”, the party’s secretary general, Alvaro Chikwamanga Daniel, said in a video recorded overnight. 

During the final phase of counting, the former rebel movement-turned-opposition-party claims “not to have been informed of the decision” by the electoral commission to ratify the results and not to have received a “copy of the tables of the final results”.

Candidates have 72 hours after the announcement of results to file a claim to the Constitutional Court contesting the ballot.

Four of the 16 electoral commissioners did not sign off on the final results, casting doubts about the process. 

Despite the contestation, both Namibian President Hage Geingob and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated Lourenco on his re-election on Tuesday. 

“The people of Angola have spoken and have once again expressed their sovereign will through the ballot box by bestowing on the MPLA a mandate to steer Angola towards further development, progress and prosperity,” Geingob said in a statement. 

– Opposition gains –

The MPLA has been the only party to govern the country since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975, but saw its poorest showing in this year’s ballot, down from its victory with 61 percent in 2017.

But this year turnout dipped to less than half of the approximately 14.4 million registered voters.

“Low voter turnout in this election indicated that citizens don’t feel that change can be affected through the ballot box,” said Marisa Lourenco, a Johannesburg-based independent analyst specialising in Angola.

“Voters also likely don’t trust the (electoral commission) or the courts, because of their partiality towards the MPLA, which makes them doubt the impact their participation will have,” she said.

UNITA made significant gains from the 2017 elections, earning 43.95 percent this round, compared with 26.67 percent in the previous vote.

It did particularly well in the capital district of Luanda, where it won a majority, taking it from the grip of the MPLA for the first time. 

UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior, 60, last week pointed to discrepancies between the tallies of his party and the commission, and called for an international panel to review the count.

The charismatic leader saw a rise in popularity among young voters who want change for the country’s struggling economy.

Young Angolans tend not to feel the same allegiance as the older generation towards the MPLA, billed as the party which freed the nation from colonial rulers and ended a bitter, nearly three-decade civil war. 

The MPLA’s Lourenco, 68, brought forward economic reforms in his first term in office, but critics say the move has not improved living conditions for most Angolans. 

Lourenco came into power in 2017, after strongman Jose Eduardo dos Santos handpicked him as his successor following 38 years in office. Dos Santos died last month in Spain and received a state funeral in Luanda on Sunday.

Under dos Santos, Angola became one of Africa’s top crude producers, and while his family reaped the benefits of the wealth, most of country’s 33 million people were left in poverty. 

In their preliminary reports, foreign observers from Africa praised the peaceful conduct of the polls but raised concerns ranging from press freedom to the accuracy of the voter roll.

The European Union has urged Angolan election authorities to respond to complaints “in a fair and transparent manner”.

In a statement on Monday UNITA said “it is in the interest of all Angolans that the (electoral commission) does not avoid comparing” its tally with those conducted by political parties — “which represents the electoral truth”.

UNITA previously contested the 2017 vote, which did not result in the overruling of the winner.

str-giv/sn/ub/lcm

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday condemned anti-immigrant protests that had prevented foreigners from accessing a hospital in the capital, fuelling concerns about rising xenophobia.

“Acts of lawlessness, intimidation and humiliation directed at foreign nationals, whether they are documented or undocumented, should not be tolerated,” Ramaphosa told parliament in a televised address. 

A new anti-immigration movement dubbed Operation Dudula, meaning “push back” in Zulu, has been picketing Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, a township west of Pretoria.  

Protesters have blocked patients on the basis of skin colour and language, infringing on basic rights, the government said in a separate statement. 

Their actions “go against the tenets of our hard fought for democracy,” it said, referring to the struggle against apartheid — a system that brutally divided the country along the lines of race.

Ramaphosa maintained that South Africans were not “xenophobic” but “quite welcoming.”

But he added that law enforcement and security forces were carrying out operations to deal with the issue of illegal migration.

The protestors blame long waits and poor service in the public health sector on strains caused by an influx of foreign migrants.

Their action follows a viral video of provincial health minister Dr Phophi Ramathuba berating a Zimbabwean patient, accusing her of seeking treatment at a government hospital at the expense of South Africans. 

Medical care at public hospitals in South Africa is free, but the costs are borne by payroll and other taxes.

The Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria then issued a statement saying its officials watched “with shock and disbelief” how the patient was treated by the minister.

Hostility towards foreign patients has been “intensifying” since Ramathuba’s remarks became public this month, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said last week. 

Around four million foreigners live in South Africa according to official estimates, but the government has no reliable figures as to how many do not have valid papers.

The picket line at the hospital has been filtering people with darker skins — a tactic seemingly aimed at Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and Nigerians — and then asking them to speak in a local language or dialect.

The protest group, Operation Dudula, was formed in January.

South Africa has been swept by waves of anti-foreigner sentiment that have led to violent, and at times deadly, attacks on immigrants. 

In April, Elvis Nyathi, a 44-year-old Zimbabwean, was burned alive in a township north of Johannesburg, where police said militants went banging on doors demanding to see residents’ visas.

In 2008, 62 people were killed in anti-immigrant riots. Other bouts of violence erupted 2015, 2016 and again in 2019.

A major source of anti-foreigner sentiment is South Africa’s sickly economy. More than a third of the workforce is jobless, with young people hardest hit.

Kenya’s Supreme Court on Tuesday said it had identified nine issues to determine the outcome of petitions challenging the result of the August 9 presidential election, including whether any irregularities were substantial enough to nullify the poll. 

Deputy President William Ruto, 55, was declared the winner of the closely contested race, scraping to victory by less than two percentage points against Raila Odinga, a 77-year-old veteran opposition figure now backed by the ruling party.

Odinga — who lost his fifth bid for the presidency — rejected the outcome and filed a petition at the top court alleging fraud in the vote tallying process.

On Tuesday, the court said it will attempt to answer nine questions during the case, including whether the election commission website was hacked and if there was any interference with the transmission of result forms. 

The seven judges will also ascertain if the election technology — a hot-button issue that led to the nullification of the August 2017 presidential vote following a challenge by Odinga — met the “standards of integrity, verifiability, security and transparency”.

After assessing the transparency of the poll, the court will finally rule on whether Ruto met the constitutional threshold of 50 percent plus 1 of the valid votes cast.

The court on Tuesday directed the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), which oversaw the poll, to grant Odinga and the other petitioners “full and unfettered” access to all the computer servers used in the poll. 

Odinga has alleged that hackers broke into the election servers and uploaded doctored result forms, a claim denied by IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati.

The apex court also ruled that the votes cast in at least 14 out of around 46,000 polling stations be inspected, scrutinised and recounted. 

– ‘Final arbiter’ –

Since 2002, no presidential election result in Kenya has gone uncontested.

This year’s poll also caused a rift within the IEBC, with four of its seven commissioners accusing Chebukati of running an “opaque” process.

Nine petitions were filed to challenge the outcome, but two were rejected on Monday.

Chief Justice Martha Koome said Tuesday the seven other cases will be collapsed into a single case because they cover the same issues.

Both Odinga and Ruto — who has been named as a defendant in the case filed by the former prime minister — have assembled huge legal teams.

Hearings will begin on Wednesday, with a decision expected on September 5.

The Supreme Court is the highest in the land, created under Kenya’s 2010 constitution “as the final arbiter and interpreter of the constitution”. 

Its rulings are final and binding. If judges order an annulment, a new vote must be held within 60 days.

But if the court upholds the results, Ruto will become Kenya’s fifth president since independence from Britain in 1963, taking the reins of a country battling inflation, high unemployment and a crippling drought.

The IEBC was under heavy pressure to deliver a clean vote after facing sharp criticism over its handling of the August 2017 election.

The court annulled that election in a first for Africa and ordered a re-run which was boycotted by Odinga. Dozens of people died during a police crackdown on protests.

Kenya’s worst electoral violence occurred after the 2007 vote, when more than 1,100 people died in politically motivated clashes involving rival tribes.

The court’s announcement of the issues that it will examine is a common procedure in Kenya, known as a “pre-trial conference.”

A UN-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat destined for millions of hungry people in Ethiopia docked in neighbouring Djibouti on Tuesday.

The bulk carrier MV Brave Commander arrived in the Horn of Africa port city two weeks after leaving a Black Sea port in Ukraine, the UN’s World Food Programme said.

“The food on the Brave Commander will feed 1.5 million people for one month in Ethiopia,” WFP’s regional director for East Africa, Mike Dunford, said in video footage provided by the agency from the port.

“So this makes a very big impact for those people who currently have nothing. And now WFP will be able to provide them with their basic needs.”

Ethiopia, along with Kenya and Somalia, is in the grip of a devastating drought that has left 22 million people at risk of starvation across the Horn of Africa, the WFP said earlier this month.

The WFP said the wheat from the Brave Commander was being transported to its operations in Ethiopia.

It was not immediately clear whether the delivery would be affected by a resumption of fighting between government forces and Tigrayan rebels in the north of the country.

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, was forced to halt almost all deliveries after Russia’s invasion in February, raising fears of a global food crisis.

But exports of grain, food and fertilisers from three Black Sea ports resumed at the start of this month under a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, brokered by the UN and Turkey in July.

The agreement lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and set terms for millions of tonnes of wheat and other grain to start flowing from silos and ports.

According to figures late last week from the Joint Coordination Centre which manages the sea corridor, more than 720,000 tonnes of grain have already left Ukraine.

The WFP said the Djibouti port is one of the main corridors it uses for its operations across Eastern and Central Africa, handling 960,000 tonnes of food commodities in 2021. 

– ‘No end in sight’ –

The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization warned last week that the situation is set to get even worse with a fifth consecutive failed rainy season.

“There is still no end in sight to this drought crisis, so we must get the resources needed to save lives and stop people plunging into catastrophic levels of hunger and starvation,” WFP executive director David Beasley said earlier this month.

The WFP has warned that famine is a “serious risk,” particularly in Somalia where nearly half the population of 15 million is seriously hungry.

The WFP says food insecurity and malnutrition are a major concern across Ethiopia, with an estimated 20.4 million people in need of food support, including those forced from their homes by the conflict in the north as well as the severe drought in the south and southeast.

Northern Ethiopia has been wracked by war since November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after what he said were attacks by the rebels on federal army camps.

Thousands of fighters including former rebels from rival camps in South Sudan’s civil war were integrated into the country’s army in a long-overdue graduation ceremony on Tuesday.

The unification of forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival, Vice President Riek Machar, was a key condition of the 2018 peace deal that ended the brutal five-year conflict in which nearly 400,000 people died.

Since achieving independence in 2011 from Sudan, the world’s youngest nation has lurched from crisis to crisis, battling flooding, hunger, ethnic violence and political turmoil.

Earlier this month, South Sudan’s leaders — appointed to run a transitional government — announced that they would remain in power two years beyond an agreed deadline, sparking international concern.

The transition period was meant to conclude with elections in December this year, but the government has so far failed to meet core provisions of the agreement, including drafting a constitution.

Nearly 22,000 men and women — drawn from Kiir and Machar’s parties as well as the South Sudan Opposition Alliance — participated in Tuesday’s proceedings, which were originally scheduled to take place in 2019 according to the peace deal.

The delays have fuelled frustration in the international community as explosions of violence threaten to undo even fragile gains.

As thousands of former rebels stood to attention at Juba’s John Garang Mausoleum — built in honour of South Sudan’s independence hero who died in 2005 — Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut administered the oath of loyalty.

Another 30,000 forces were also due to graduate in the coming days in training camps around the country.

In addition to joining the army and the police, the new graduates have also been integrated into the VIP protection force, the wildlife service, the civil defence and other organisations responsible for national security.

“These forces will be deployed all over South Sudan… After their graduation, the second batch will go for training,” Information Minister Michael Makuei told AFP.

The ceremony was held under tight security, in the presence of representatives from the United Nations and neighbouring countries including Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Sudanese coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

It followed years of deadlock between Machar and Kiir over the division of senior posts in the unified armed forces command, with the two men only inking an agreement in April this year.

– Sticks not guns –

The addition of tens of thousands of former rebels to the government’s payroll will add to already crushing economic challenges — civil servants have been unpaid for months.

But the move was nevertheless met with optimism in some quarters, with one former rebel telling AFP he was excited to join the police force.

“I am looking forward to serving my people. I just want to tell our people that finally peace has come after a long struggle,” said the former rebel who only identified himself as John, citing government restrictions.

Many of the new graduates carried sticks instead of guns at the ceremony, because of a years-long arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.

The government has repeatedly urged the UN to lift the embargo, even as deadly violence continues to roil the country.

“It is now high time for them to approve the purchase of the arms… because these security forces can not be security forces if they are not properly armed,” said minister Makuei.

The UN has repeatedly criticised South Sudan’s leadership for its role in stoking violence, cracking down on political freedoms and plundering public coffers.

It has also accused the government of rights violations amounting to war crimes over deadly attacks in the southwest last year.

The UN’s World Food Programme warned in March that over 70 percent of South Sudan’s 11 million people would face extreme hunger this year because of natural disasters and violence.

The United States last month pulled out of two peace process monitoring organisations in South Sudan due to the government’s failure to meet reform milestones, citing a “lack of sustained progress”.