The United Nations Mission in South Sudan will not allow anyone in military uniform into the protection of civilians sites across the country and destroys any weapons that people try to bring in, according to the mission's chief.

UNMISS head Ellen Margrethe Loej, responding to accusations from President Salva Kiir in an interview earlier this month, told Radio Miraya that there are obviously former combatants from both sides living in the camps, but they should all be disarmed and out of uniform. 

“I have no doubt that in the protection of civilian sites there are many people who support the opposition or that there are many who are former soldiers, who defected from the army,” she said.

Kiir accused UNMISS of hosting people with guns in an interview earlier this month with Al Jazeera. He said some of the people living in the camps “fought physically” against his government.

Loej said UNMISS personnel do regular sweeps for weapons to “make sure that the civilian character of the camp is upheld. If people go out of the camp to join the fighting and we get to know about it, we will not readmit them.”

Kiir said he wanted to the guns of any former soldiers who have defected from his forces and sought protection of the UN to be returned to him.