Largely Christian South Sudan won its independence from Sudan, a majority Muslim country, in 2011 after years of fighting.
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A heavily-armed Ugandan military convoy crossed into South Sudan on Thursday to evacuate citizens trapped by recent fighting in the capital Juba, an AFP reporter at the border said.
Yesterday, an official advisory had said that only Indian nationals with valid Indian travel documents will be allowed boarding with maximum five kg cabin baggage and no check-in pieces.
The fighting has threatened a peace deal reached in August between Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, which called for a transitional government including members of both sides.
Many foreigners have been evacuated from South Sudan, the world’s newest nation which is still recovering from the civil war which killed thousands of people and drove more than 2.5 million from their homes. Please move out of South Sudan.
“Our Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon and his team is organising this operation on the ground”, Swaraj said.
The operation, named Operation Sankat Mochan, was the first big evacuation effort a year after Operation Rahat evacuated hundreds of citizens of India and other countries from Yemen in 2015.
President Obama has ordered 47 US troops to South Sudan to help protect the American embassy there after an outbreak of violence in the newly formed nation.
“The evacuation has been meticulously planned in coordination with the local authorities as well as the support of the Indian peacekeeping contingent in Unmiss (UN Mission in South Sudan)”, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in a media briefing here.
South Sudan plunged into civil conflict in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir’s forces clashed with forces allied to his former deputy Riek Machar.
The United Nations says it is also investigating reports accusing President Kiir’s troops of targeting UN staff and foreign aid workers amid the fighting.
Residents of Juba tell VOA the city remained calm Thursday, three days after a cease-fire took effect, but that people remain on edge and are not sending their children to school in case fighting resumes.
This was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist at the airport in the capital Juba.
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South Sudan, shepherded into existence by U.S. cash and diplomacy in 2011, has faltered badly in its infancy, and the Obama administration has been accused of abandoning the fragile nation.
