The UN Security Council on Monday decided to impose a ban on arms imports in South Sudan and to add two rebel leaders to the sanctions lists, nearly five years after the start of the country’s civil war. Nine of the 15 members voted in favor of Resolution 2428, under which all Member States must prevent arms and related equipment of all types - including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and any spare parts - from entering South Sudan. At the start of the session, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley submitted the draft resolution and the circumstances that prompted the United States to present it. She noted that the Security Council should have imposed an arms embargo since 2016, adding that the council had failed to deal with the situation at that time. “South Sudan’s people have endured unimaginable suffering and unspeakable atrocities. Their leaders have failed them,” Haley stressed. “We need the violence to stop.” For his part, Ethiopia’s UN Ambassador Tekeda Alemu told the council before the vote that imposing the arms embargo would undermine the peace process and that the African Union and East African regional bloc IGAD believe “now is not the appropriate time for taking such measures.” The Council also renewed the South Sudan Sanctions regime until May 31, 2019 and the Sanctions Committee’s Panel of Experts until July 1, 2019. Former military chief Paul Malong and Malek Reuben Riak, a former deputy chief of general staff for logistics, were added to the UN sanctions blacklist and hit by a global visa ban and assets freeze. South Sudan, which split from Sudan in 2011, has been witnessing a civil war since 2013 as a result of the political rivalry between current President Salva Kiir and Opposition Leader and former Vice President Riek Machar. However, the southern Sudan parliament recently agreed to extend the mandate of Kiir until 2021, in a move likely to undermine peace talks.