Salva Kiir and Riek Machar sign peace deal

ADDIS ABABA,

South Sudan's government and rebels signed a peace agreement on Monday, hours before the end of a deadline threatening international sanctions, but details of the deal were not immediately known.

The agreement was signed by rebel chief Riek Machar and Pagan Amum, the secretary-general of the ruling party, an AFP correspondent said.

President Salva Kiir watched the signing, after briefly shaking hands with Machar.

Mr Kiir and Dr Machar met alongside regional presidents in Ethiopia, under intense diplomatic pressure to sign a deal in the final hours before Monday.

DLAMINI-ZUMA WARNING

African Union chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had warned that failure to strike a deal “will have far-reaching consequences for South Sudan, the region and the continent as a whole”.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war, and South Sudanese civil society groups on Monday pleaded for a “stoppage of bloodshed” and a deal to be struck.

“Enough is enough,” a dozen groups said in a joint statement.

“The people of South Sudan cannot raise another generation of South Sudanese children in civil war.”

In a signal of the dire conditions on the ground, the number sheltering inside UN peacekeeper bases has risen by a third in just over a month to almost 200,000 civilians, the UN mission said Monday.