The UN's resolution to extend the ban through May next year passed with 10 out of 15 votes, with Gabon, Kenya, India, Russia, and China abstaining.

The council also extended targeted sanctions against South Sudanese individuals.

Rights group Amnesty International has welcomed the decision.

"The [embargo] is crucial to curtailing the flow of weapons that have been used to commit or facilitate war crimes, human rights violations and abuses including conflict-related sexual violence," it said in a statement.

South Sudan has protested against the US-drafted resolution as unfair to "the people of South Sudan, who suffer under the cruelty of the UN sanctions and arms embargo", its foreign affairs ministry said.

A UN panel of experts had recommended that the council extend the arms embargo because of "persistent ceasefire violations" and rising violence in the country.

The embargo was first imposed in 2018 after a peace agreement ended five years of a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

The world's youngest country has experienced pervasive insecurity since seceding from Sudan in 2011.