South Sudan Cease-Fire Is Signed, but ‘Difficult’ Period Awaits<br />21, 2017<br />ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — South Sudan’s warring factions on Thursday signed a new agreement to cease hostilities<br />and protect civilians in the latest effort to calm a devastating civil war.<br />The two sides also signed an agreement to grant humanitarian access to conflict-affected areas after days of<br />talks in neighboring Ethiopia brokered by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development regional bloc.<br />The government’s lead delegate to the talks, the cabinet affairs minister, Martin Elias Lomoro, told The Associated Press<br />that the rebel leader Riek Machar did not take part because he was not deemed helpful.<br />Parts of the East African country, the world’s youngest nation, are on the brink of famine,<br />and well over a million people have fled abroad, creating the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.<br />Past attempts at peace deals have failed, but South Sudan’s government is under pressure to<br />find an end to the war as the United States and others have threatened further sanctions.
