Machar signed a peace deal with President Salva Kiir in August previous year that has failed to take hold.
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About 60,000 people have fled South Sudan since fighting broke out between rival army factions nearly four weeks ago, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday.
“Refugees have also reported that armed groups operating across different parts of South Sudan are looting villages, restricting movement and forcibly recruiting young men and boys into their ranks”, Fleming said.
South Sudan was founded with optimistic celebrations in the capital on July 9, 2011, after it gained independence from Sudan in a referendum that passed with almost 100 percent of the vote.
An armed ethnic conflict erupted in South Sudan in December 2013, one year and a half after the nation gained independence from Sudan, when Kiir accused Machar of preparing a military coup.
The personal rivalry between Kiir, from the Dinka group, and Machar, a Nuer, has worsened ethnic splits in a country awash with weapons. About a million people have fled their home due to the conflict, according to United Nations estimates.
An influential South Sudanese minister and opposition figure has resigned, dealing a major blow to the country’s fragile peace deal.
Nyarji Jermlili Roman, the deputy spokesman for Machar, said the nine died on Sunday when they ambushed a vehicle carrying government troops in Lainya county in Central Equatorial state.
Machar fled Juba in July and went into hiding after new clashes broke out between his forces and government soldiers, saying he would only return when third-party forces were deployed to act as a buffer.
More than 10,000 civilians have so far been killed in the conflict, amid allegations of crimes against humanity in the world’s youngest country.
South Sudanese refugees gather at a UNHCR collection centre on the South Sudan border in Egelo, Uganda.
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South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said last Thursday that it has chose to apply new immigration procedures to all personnel of the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) entering the country.
