Despite repeated warnings from the United Nations, South Sudan’s leader President Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar have failed to peacefully lead the country. A Ministry of External Affairs officer had ordered the Indians in South Sudan to get in touch with the embassy there and register themselves. “2 C-17s proceeding to Juba tomorrow with @Gen_VKSingh leading evac’n frm South Sudan”.
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The president said he spoke to Machar earlier in the day and asked him to return but added, “It was hard for him to accept”.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and partners are providing urgent life-saving assistance to thousands of people displaced by last weekend’s heavy fighting in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, UN officials said here Thursday. “Around half the population has been forced to leave their homes”, said Florence Mawanda, director of the Tearfund NGO, an aid-worker organization in Juba. In 1972, peace agreements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, temporarily ended the war until 1983 when conflict erupted once more starting the second civil war.
The World Food Program said it was outraged by the looting of its main warehouse in Juba, which had held more than 4,500 metric tons of food as well as trucks, generators and other supplies for countrywide operations. “South Sudan must respect people’s right to freedom of movement, including the right to leave their own country”, said Elizabeth Deng, Amnesty International’s South Sudan Researcher.
According to the ministry, there are around 600 Indians in South Sudan, of them 450 are in Juba and almost 150 are outside the capital. “The first flight makes a technical halt at Entebbe, Uganda”, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh tweeted.
The recent violence in Juba echoed the fighting that triggered the civil war and marks a fresh blow to last year’s peace deal to end the bitter conflict that began when President Salva Kiir accused ex-rebel and now Vice President Riek Machar of plotting a coup.
He said the decision was to avoid further violence with forces loyal to President Salva Kiir after the declaration of ceasefire on Monday evening. They signed a peace deal in August 2015 and then argued over details amid sporadic fighting.
William Spindler, spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, said the number of refugees in neighbouring countries was now 835,000.
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An army spokesman said that any soldier found stealing civilian property or looting would be arrested, and shot at if they resisted.
