Americans, Britons leave as South Sudan nears civil war
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South Sudan’s army is poised for a major offensive against rebel forces, the president said yesterday, as the country slid towards civil war despite international peace efforts.
Expectations of a major upsurge in fighting came as the United Nations warned that the situation in the world’s youngest nation was fast unravelling, with hundreds of thousands of civilians now at risk.
Fighting has gripped South Sudan for more than a week, after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar, who was fired from the government in July, of attempting a coup.
Machar denied the claim and accused Kiir of carrying out a vicious purge of his rivals. Vowing to oust Kiir, his forces have since seized the town of Bor, capital of the powder-keg eastern Jonglei state and located just 200 kilometers north of Juba, as well as the town of Bentiu, capital of crucial oil-producing Unity state.
The army is “now ready to move to Bor,” Kiir told parliament, adding that the counter-attack was delayed until US citizens had been airlifted out.
The comments came despite days of shuttle diplomacy by African nations and calls from the United Nations, United States and Britain for the fighting to stop in the country which won independence from Sudan in July 2011.
The top UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan, Toby Lanzer, said the situation was rapidly deteriorating. “It would have been difficult one week ago to imagine that things would have unravelled to this extent,” Lanzer said.
“There are hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese who’ve fled into the bush or back to their villages to get out of harm’s way.”
He admitted that UN peacekeepers were ill-equipped and lacking the numbers to protect civilians seeking shelter.
The European Union’s aid chief, Kristalina Georgieva, said the country was “at the brink of a humanitarian tragedy.”
Foreign governments have been evacuating their nationals. Britain was flying its third and final military aircraft yesterday to evacuate citizens.
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