US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Kenya and other East African countries to prepare sanctions and supply peacekeeping troops as part of an intensifying effort to end the fighting in South Sudan.

According to officials who accompanied Mr Kerry, financial punishments aimed at government and rebel leaders in South Sudan will prove more effective if levied by East African countries as well as by the United States.

“I think what we realise is that a lot of the South Sudanese own property and travel to Kenya and Uganda and Ethiopia,” a State Department official told the New York Times on Friday. “Without their participation, the sanctions will be weaker.”

Speaking in Addis on Thursday, Mr Kerry emphasised that the US is prepared to move unilaterally, if necessary, to sanction South Sudanese leaders.

He suggested that these measures would not only target President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, but also include rebels and other government officials.

2000 UGANDAN TROOPS

State Department officials said it is urgent that additional troops be dispatched to South Sudan to halt spreading atrocities.

Mr Kerry wants the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), to urgently implement plans discussed in March for deployment of a “protection and stabilisation force” in South Sudan.

Two months ago, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi had expressed willingness to provide soldiers. Uganda has already dispatched some 2000 troops to South Sudan to assist government forces.

Prior to flying to South Sudan on Friday, Mr Kerry said in Addis Ababa that he and the foreign ministers of Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda had agreed on "the terms and timing and manner and size" of such an Igad force.

“It is our hope that in these next days, literally, we can move more rapidly to put people on the ground,” Mr Kerry said after his talks with Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed and her counterparts Sam Kutesa (Uganda) and Tedros Adhanom (Ethiopia).

RELUCTANT TO SEND

However, details have not been finalised. These include the make-up of the East African force, its financing and how it would relate to the United Nations peacekeeping force already on the ground in South Sudan.

The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet later on Friday in New York to discuss the military and humanitarian situation in South Sudan.

A meeting in December agreed to expand the Blue Helmet force in South Sudan from 7700 personnel to 13,200. However, only one-third of those additional 5500 soldiers and police have so far been deployed.

The UN is stretched thin by growing peacekeeping demands in Africa and the Middle East.

Additional forces for South Sudan are expected from UN deployments elsewhere in Africa, but some countries participating in those operations have been reluctant to agree to send their nationals to South Sudan war zones.