President Salva Kiir of South Sudan says his country’s long-delayed elections will take place in 2024 and that he will be on the ballot.

In 18 months South Sudan is supposed to head to the polls for presidential elections, the culmination of a peace agreement signed nearly five years ago to pull the nation out of fighting that killed some 400,000 people.

The U.N. Security Council is demanding an immediate end to all fighting in South Sudan and is pushing for swift progress by the government to ensure that delayed elections are held peacefully and freely in December 2024.

Pope Francis has made a final appeal for peace in South Sudan.

An explosion of violence in South Sudan is raising fears that the country’s fragile peace agreement could unravel before the transitional government wraps up early next year.

Pope Francis is urging the people and leaders of Congo and South Sudan to “turn a page” and forge new paths of reconciliation, peace and development.

A petition to stop the revival of the 118-year-old Jonglei Canal project in South Sudan, started by one of the country’s top academics, is gaining traction in the country, with the waterway touted as a catastrophic environmental and social disaster for the country’s Sudd wetlands.

Many of South Sudan’s civil servants have not been paid for months as the government has run out of funds, because the income from oil exports is allocated to servicing loans until 2027.

South Sudan’s vice president is urging regional mediators to intervene to protect the country’s fragile peace deal, warning of a return “back to war” amid alleged attacks by government troops on his forces.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is planning to visit Congo and South Sudan in July.

Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury are urging South Sudan's rival political leaders to make the necessary personal sacrifices to consolidate peace.

FILE - In this Saturday, June 27, 2020 file photo, trainees parade with the wooden mock guns which they use to train with, during the visit of the defense minister to a military training center in Owiny Ki-Bul, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. The scale of violence in South Sudan is "a lot worse" than during the country's five-year civil war, a United Nations commission announced Friday, Feb. 19, 2021, accusing senior officials of supporting armed groups that at times have included tens of thousands of fighters. (AP Photo/Maura Ajak, File)CAMEROON – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to extend the almost 20,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, with a mandate “to advance a three-year strategic vision to prevent a return to civil war” and build peace both nationally and locally. The civil war has killed nearly 400,000 people and displaced millions, and the death toll keeps rising. And it condemned the mobilization of these armed groups by members of the government’s forces and by armed opposition groups.

The civil war that ended in 2018 killed an estimated nearly 400,000 people, and millions of people are still struggling to recover. There is “no doubt that the coordination is really coming from the top.”A spokesman for South Sudan President Salva Kiir said he needed to read the report before commenting. AdThe violence in South Sudan now is localized and differs from the civil war in that some combatants are not in uniform and community leaders, militias and religious figures are involved, Sooka said. The report comes a year after South Sudan’s unity government was formed, with former armed opposition leader Riek Machar again becoming Kiir’s deputy. ___Maura Ajak in South Sudan contributed.

A father and his sons transport cows from a flooded area to drier ground using a dugout canoe, in Old Fangak county, Jonglei state, South Sudan Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. (AP Photo/Maura Ajak)On a scrap of land surrounded by flooding in South Sudan, families drink and bathe from the waters that swept away latrines and continue to rise. She said she had little knowledge of the coronavirus pandemic ravaging other parts of the world and spreading largely undetected in poorly resourced South Sudan. Instead, her fear is that the makeshift water dike around their home could collapse at any time, flooding the young children. When there is no canoe to transport people during times that waters surge, “our children die in our hands because we are helpless,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron reacts as he meets Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020 in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19, the presidential Elysee Palace announced on Thursday. DONALD TRUMPPresident Donald Trump announced in October that he and his wife, first lady Melania Trump, tested positive for the coronavirus. BORIS JOHNSONThe British prime minister was the first major world leader confirmed to have COVID-19, after facing criticism for downplaying the pandemic. Other top officials in former Soviet states who were infected include Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

One county in South Sudan is likely in famine and tens of thousands of people in five other counties are on the brink of starvation, according to a new report released Friday, Dec. 11, 2020 by international food security experts. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)JUBA – One county in South Sudan is likely in famine and tens of thousands of people in five other counties are on the brink of starvation, according to a new report by international food security experts. The new report stops short of declaring famine, which would kick aid efforts into higher gear, because of insufficient data. But based on available information, famine is thought to be occurring, according to the Famine Review Committee report released by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. “Considering all the evidence available, famine is most likely ongoing, and we expect a high rate of death in that area,” said Chris Newton, a former U.N. World Food Program staffer with years of experience in South Sudan.

(AP Photo/Maura Ajak, File)JOHANNESBURG – South Sudan has made no concrete steps toward national healing more than two years after the end of a civil war that killed nearly 400,000 people and sent more than 2 million people fleeing, a new United Nations report says. The new report calls for the government to allocate at least 1% of the country’s oil revenues to reparations to citizens harmed during the five-year civil war. South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has seen very little peace. In September, the U.N. secretary-general warned that South Sudan is one of four countries that face the risk of famine. ___Ajak reported from Juba, South Sudan.