South Sudan political solution a must: Top UN peacekeeper:

The top UN peacekeeping official has called on the international community to give priority to finding a political solution to the crisis in South Sudan where Indian peacekeepers have come under crossfire and a colonel was injured amid a worsening situation.

"I have to regret that indeed a political solution is not making any progress," Herve Ladsus, the Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping, told reporters here Friday. "There is really the need for the international community to take the measure of the drama unfolding now for 18 months that made tens of thousands of victims and again with no political perspective in sight."

Finding a political solution "is a critical issue that the people should focus on more," he added. "The priority should be more than ever to finding a political solution to this drama."

The battle lines are drawn between the forces loyal to President Salva Kiir Mayardit and supporters of former vice president Riek Machar Teny of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO).

Mediation efforts of the seven-nation East African organisation, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has so far been unsuccessful and earlier this month it even admitted it was "deeply frustrated."

Ladsus attributed to the approaching rainy season the recent intensification in the fighting in which the Indian colonel was injured by crossfire at a camp in Malakel.

"What we are seeing, especially these days, in South Sudan is extremely sad," he said. "It is getting worse right now because it is just the beginning of the rainy season and every side is trying to consolidate or further establish its positions."

He said that once the rains set in travel would become impossible and things would settle down.

In a high-level staff change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Friday Eugene Owusu of Ghana as his Deputy Special Representative in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), succeeding Toby Lanzer of Britain, who has moved to post in the Sahel.

Asked at the press conference about the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) set up to monitor the ceasefire in Kashmir, Ladsus said, "It is indeed one of the more discreet operations, but I think it is fulfilling its role in Kashmir area under difficult circumstances."

"The mission was established by the General Assembly, so it gathers, may be, little less attention," he added.

India, however, maintains that the UNMOGIP that was set up in 1949 has "outlived its mandate" and last year it asked the mission to move out of the building it was given rent-free.

Major General Delali Johnson Sakyi of Ghana heads the group, which has 42 military observers.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)