Security Council extends South Sudan mandate by a day

The U.N. Security Council voted Thursday to extend its mandate in war-torn South Sudan by a day so its deeply divided members can try to reach agreement on a draft resolution extending the peacekeeping mission and addressing the crisis in the country.

The mission’s mandate expired Thursday and the council voted unanimously to approve the daylong extension after disagreement over the latest U.S. draft.

Two years after South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011, the country plunged into violence when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, started battling those loyal to Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer who was his former vice-president. A peace deal signed in August 2015 has not stopped the fighting, and the U.N. says tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced.

Russia and others objected to the U.S.’s latest version of the draft resolution, which included calls for sanctions and provisions such as the use of drones, among other concerns, Deputy Russian Ambassador Petr Iliichev said.

“There are several delegations that have very serious concerns, and we knew it from the very beginning,” he said. “And the attitude that you just disregard these concerns doesn’t work. You have to compromise.”

A team of U.N. investigators told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that South Sudan is “on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war which could destabilize the entire region.”