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South Sudan’s government and rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM in Opposition) on Thursday signed a ceasefire agreement in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to end over a month-old fighting in the world’s youngest nation.
Fighting between President Salva Kiir government Army and forces loyal to former vice-president, Riek Machar, broke out in mid-December following what Kiir alleged was a coup attempt staged by his former deputy, an allegation the latter denies.
The spokesperson of the South Sudanese army (SPLA) said Saturday that government forces recaptured Bor, the capital of its largest state from rebels.
“Government forces have today [Saturday] defeated the rebel forces in Bor,” Col. Phillip Aguer briefly told Sudan Tribune, without giving further details.
Uganda has confirmed its troops are fighting alongside South Sudan’s government against rebels, as fresh details emerged Thursday of brutal ethnic killings in the conflict ravaging the world’s youngest nation.
Ceasefire talks — to end a more than a month-long conflict in which thousands have been killed — are deadlocked amid squabbling leaders and rebel demands for the release of political prisoners.
The United Nations today reported a new rebel attack in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the region continues to suffer from deadly violence even after the defeat of a major dissident group, the M23, over a month ago.
In the latest violence, Mayi Mayi Sheka fighters attacked Pinga, in North Kivu province, but left after a 30-minute gun fight with the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUSCO) reported.
Government troops in South Sudan are advancing on the flashpoint town of Bor, the last state capital still in rebel hands, an army spokesman says.
‘Bor is still in the hands of the rebels but our forces are still moving towards it,’ Colonel Philip Aguer said on Monday.
Bor, situated some 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Juba and capital of the restive Jonglei State, has already changed hands three times since fighting broke out in South Sudan one month ago.
Kenya’s military has killed more than 30 al-Shabaab militants and commanders in Somalia, a spokesman said, in a major air strike across the border following the Islamists’ attack on a Nairobi shopping mall last year.
Kenyan fighter jets hit a camp at Garbaharey in the Gedo region on Thursday, where the militants, who profess links to al-Qaeda, were holding a meeting, the military said.
South Sudan’s army claimed on Tuesday that David Yau Yau, who has been leading a rebellion out of Pibor county in Jonglei state since April 2012, has agreed to cease hostilities against government forces.
Yau Yau’s rebel group in eastern part of Jonglei is constituted from his Murle ethnic group. He originally rebelled in 2011 after he failed to become a local legislator during the 2010 elections.