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S. Sudan warring parties refute UN reports on stocking arms, ammunition

Xinhua, November 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

South Sudan's warring parties refuted UN recent reports that accused them of stocking weapons and ammunition in violation of the peace deal, local media reported Saturday.

"The reports which indicated that the government was expanding its stockpiles of arms and ammunition are media fabrications," Radio Tamazuj quoted Ateny Wek, a spokesman for South Sudanese Presidency, as saying.

"There is no trend inside the government to do so. We are now embarked on putting arrangements to implement the peace deal," he noted.

A spokesperson for South Sudan rebel also said that "those reports are baseless. What is happening is that the SPLA is being organized prior to the implementation of peace deal recently signed in Addis Ababa."

Last week, the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development in Africa (IGAD) declared that the two South Sudanese warring parties had agreed to begin the transitional period as of mid of November in implementation of the peace deal they signed last August.

However, UN experts said on Wednesday in a report for the Security Council that the two warring parties in South Sudan "are actively expanding their stockpiles of arms and ammunition."

South Sudan was plunged into violence in December 2013 when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Riek Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension.

The clashes have killed thousands of South Sudanese and forced around 1.9 million to flee their homes. Endit