The United Nations mission in South Sudan said Sunday that it has recalled a 46-member peacekeeping police unit after some members allegedly paid local women living in a protection camp for sex.

A U.N. statement says the Ghanaian policemen have been recalled from Wau to the capital, Juba.

The U.N. chief in South Sudan, David Shearer, calls it a "clear breach" of the code of conduct, which prohibits sexual relationships with vulnerable people.

"We should not have such people in this country," South Sudan government spokesman Michael Makuei tells The Associated Press.

The United Nations has 17,000 peacekeepers in civil war-torn South Sudan.

The U.N. in recent years has struggled to deal with numerous cases of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers in some of the world's poorest nations.