She warned Kiir and Machar that “if famine does take hold later in the year… responsibility for it will lie squarely with the country’s leaders, who agreed to a cessation of hostilities in January and then failed to observe it themselves.”
Dieng also called on Kiir and Machar to take “higher responsibility” for those under their command.
The UN visit, which wrapped up Wednesday, comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry is also heading to the region.
The United States was instrumental in helping South Sudan gain independence, and Kerry, who arrives in Ethiopia late Wednesday, is expected to try to press the negotiators at slow-moving peace talks to end the fighting.
Earlier this month, the rebels were blamed for the killings of hundreds of people in the oil hub of Bentiu, and a pro-government mob killed dozens of civilians in an attack on a UN base in Bor.
The unrest broke out on December 15 in what Kiir called a coup attempt by Machar, his sacked vice president. The conflict has taken on an ethnic dimension, pitting Kiir’s Dinka tribe against militia forces from Machar’s Nuer people.
Dieng said the country “should not be led down this slippery slope”.
“I beseech everyone, the South Sudanese, your leaders, the regional and international community, to take immediate measures to end the violence and uphold our collective responsibility to protect the populations of South Sudan from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
Last week the UN Security Council brandished the threat of sanctions against both the rebels and government forces.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is “strongly concerned, and will make sure that never again what happened in Rwanda happens in another place in this continent,” Dieng said, adding that “the world is watching.”
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