Date: Sun Dec 14 15:37:25 2014
South Sudan: War and misery continue
2014-12-14 21:03
Nairobi - One year after mass violence broke out in South Sudan, battles
between government forces and rebels continue, and aid officials say
international assistance is needed to help residents stave off mass hunger.
Government troops and armed youths have been battling in Upper Nile state in
recent days, a sign that widespread violence could return now that the
six-month rainy season has ended.
Fighting broke out last December between President Salva Kiir's troops and
those loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar.
Since then, more than 1.5 million South Sudanese have fled their homes,
leaving many families without anyone to plant crops. The aid community had
feared famine, but an injection of food supplies by the World Food Programme
and other groups helped avoid that.
If fighting resumes the spectre of famine could return in 2015, warn aid
groups.
Concern about South Sudan is waning and that it risks becoming "yet another
forgotten state", the International Committee of the Red Cross said on
Sunday.
"The spotlight may have turned away from South Sudan in recent months, but
needs remain enormous and the situation is still serious," said Franz
Rauchenstein, the head of the ICRC in South Sudan. "People caught up in this
conflict cannot be forgotten."
The two sides have signed several peace deals brokered by neighbouring
governments, but none has actually stopped the warfare in the oil-rich
country.
Much of the violence has pitted the Dinkas who back Kiir against the Nuer
who support Machar. Gross atrocities were committed by both sides, including
the killings of elderly patients in hospital wards as well as the slaughter
of hundreds of civilians in the capital last December, according to human
rights groups.
South Sudan peacefully broke away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of war,
becoming the world's newest nation. But the outbreak of violence last year
shattered the goodwill the country had built up internationally.
South Sudan's cycle of ethnic revenge killings creates an urgent need to
hold those responsible to account, said Human Rights Watch, adding that the
war's widespread abuses should be investigated as war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
Displaced South Sudanese citizens wait at a Sudanese border checkpoint in
Joda, where Sudan's White Nile state meets the South's Upper Nile, after
fleeing battles between rebel and government forces. (Ashraf Shazly, AFP)
Displaced South Sudanese citizens wait at a Sudanese border checkpoint in
Joda, where Sudan's White Nile state meets the South's Upper Nile, after
fleeing battles between rebel and government forces. (Ashraf Shazly, AFP)
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