Heavy fighting between government forces and rebels was raging Thursday in South Sudan's key oil-producing north, officials said, as neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia stepped up efforts to broker an end to the civil war.
Heavy fighting between government forces and rebels was raging Thursday
in South Sudan's key oil-producing north, officials said, as neighboring Kenya
and Ethiopia stepped up efforts to broker an end to the civil war.
Army spokesman Philip Aguer said troops loyal to President Salva Kiir were
battling forces allied to former vice president Riek Machar inside the town of
Malakal
,
capital of
Upper Nile
state.
He also said troops were preparing an offensive against Bentiu, the main town
in oil-rich Unity State, to follow on from their recapture of Bor, another
state capital that had fallen into rebel hands during the nearly two weeks of
clashes in the world' youngest nation.
"There is fighting in Malakal. Our forces are in the northern part of Malakal
and the rebels are on the southern part. We will flush them out of
Malakal," Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) spokesman Aguer told AFP.
"The rebels are still controling Bentiu but SPLA is planning to retake
Bentiu soon," he added.
The violence in
South Sudan
, a fledgling oil producer
which won independence from
Sudan
just
two years ago, has left thousands dead, according to the United Nations.
Tens of thousands of civilians have also sought protection at U.N. bases amid a
wave of ethnic violence pitting members of Kiir's Dinka tribe against Machar's
Nuer.
The U.N. Security Council voted Tuesday to send nearly 6,000 extra soldiers and
police to South Sudan, nearly doubling the UNMISS force to 12,500 troops and
1,323 civilian police.
Amid reports of bodies piled in mass graves and witness testimonies of
massacres and summary executions and rapes, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
has promised those responsible would be "held accountable".
Crude prices have edged higher because of the fighting as oil production, which
accounts for more than 95 percent of South Sudan's fledgling economy, has been
dented by the violence and oil workers evacuated.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and
Ethiopia
's
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn flew into
Juba
on
Thursday for talks with President Kiir, the latest in a line of peace brokers
who have flown in since the fighting began on Dec. 15.
The fighting started after Kiir accused Machar of attempting a coup. Machar
denied this, and said the president was exploiting a clash between members of
the army as a pretext to carry out a purge.
Although Kiir and Machar--a former vice president who was sacked in July--have
said they are open to peace talks, fighting has spread to half of the country's
10 states.
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