Kenya Agrees to Rejoin South Sudan UN force

Kenya has accepted to take part in a UN regional protection force for South Sudan, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday.

The decision comes three months after Kenya angrily withdrew its troops from The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) after Guterres’ predecessor Ban Ki-moon, fired the Kenyan commander of the peacekeeping force.

Guterres told reporters that he had reached full agreement with Kenya to participate in the regional protection force to be deployed in the South Sudanese capital Juba

The UN Security Council decided in August to deploy the 4,000-strong regional force to bolster its peacekeeping mission, but the plan has been bogged down in delays and bureaucratic hurdles.

Guterres returned from a series of meetings with regional leaders on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, saying that peace efforts on South Sudan were back on track.

The UN chief, who also met with President Salva Kiir, said the African Union’s mediator for South Sudan, Mali’s former president Alpha Oumar Konare, would led the new diplomatic push, backed by the United Nations.

The IGAD regional bloc and the African Union have made little headway in efforts to end the three-year war in South Sudan, one of Africa’s worst conflicts, that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Guterres will deliver a report to the Security Council on Friday on his diplomatic efforts on South Sudan