South Sudan on brink of collapse as war rages

South Sudanese rebel leader and former vice president Riek Machar addresses a meeting of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the Upper Nile state in South Sudan on April 15, 2014. Machar has vowed to attack the capital Juba and target crucial oil fields, warning in an exclusive interview with AFP that the civil war will not end until the country's president is removed from power. "If we are to remove the dictator, Juba is a target, oil fields are a target," Machar said late Monday in a secret location in Upper Nile state, one of South Sudan's key oil producing regions. AFP/PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • But although less than three years old, the world's youngest nation is spiralling towards collapse. With a ceasefire deal in tatters, the United Nations fear more than one million people are at risk of famine, and analysts warn the war is dragging in regional nations.
  • The fighting is between soldiers loyal to Kiir against mutinous troops who sided with Machar, but has also taken on an ethnic dimension, pitting Kiir's Dinka tribe against militia forces from Machar's Nuer people.
  • Over 100 people have been killed in a cattle raid in South Sudan's Warrap state, a local information minister told UN radio, the latest atrocity in the war-torn natio

UPPER NILE,

When not plotting military strategy to seize South Sudan's crucial oil fields, sacked vice-president turned rebel chief Riek Machar spends time reading the economic and political history "Why Nations Fail".

Cynics might argue he would do better to simply look around his basic bush camp, where mutinous soldiers and an allied ethnic militia crammed with child soldiers ready themselves to attack government forces, as a brutal four-month-long civil war in which thousands of people have already been killed intensifies.

Members of the White Army, a South Sudanese anti-government militia, listen to a speech given by Gathoth Gatkuoth (R) during a rally in Nasir on April 14, 2014. Conflict in South Sudan has triggered a serious risk of famine that will kill up to 50,000 children within months if immediate action is not taken, the UN has warned. The African country has experienced high levels of malnutrition since it gained independence in 2011, UNICEF said, and conditions have worsened since ethnic conflict broke out between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and supporters of his former deputy Riek Machar. AFP/PHOTO

"I didn't want to fight any more war again," Machar told AFP in a recent interview at his rebel hideout, saying people had had enough of fighting during Sudan's long civil war, in which he was a guerrilla commander.

It was that war, which lasted more two decades, that paved the way for South Sudan's independence from the north.

But although less than three years old, the world's youngest nation is spiralling towards collapse. With a ceasefire deal in tatters, the United Nations fear more than one million people are at risk of famine, and analysts warn the war is dragging in regional nations.

Over one million people have fled their homes, with violence worsening amid a renewed offensive by the rebel forces, as well as revenge attacks by multiple militia forces.

Peace talks in luxury hotels in Ethiopia have made little if any progress, while analysts warn that any solution will require major changes, not simply more promises inked only on paper.

"Propping up the government in Juba and polishing its legitimacy with a dose of political dialogue and a dash of power sharing will not end the conflict," the International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in a recent report.

PEACEKEEPERS OUTGUNNED

On Thursday hundreds of gunmen stormed a UN peacekeeping base in the flashpoint town of Bor, killing at least 48 men, women and children sheltering there from a rival ethnic group before peacekeepers fought them off.

The UN Security Council called the attack an "outrage" that may constitute a war crime.

"Badly outgunned peacekeepers are no match for the thousands of heavily armed forces and militias," the ICG added.

When fighting broke out on December 15, it was sparked by "primarily political" arguments between Machar and President Salva Kiir, the ICG said, but the battles have since escalated, spreading to other states in the oil-rich but grossly impoverished nation.

"Ethnic targeting, communal mobilisation and spiralling violence quickly led to appalling levels of brutality against civilians," according to the ICG.

Atrocities were also carried out further north in the oil-hub of Bentiu, which the army admitted on Wednesday it had lost to rebel forces.

The UN aid agency said it had reports of "targeted killings based on ethnicity", with "several dozen" corpses rotting on the streets.

The violence is rooted in decades-old grievances between former rebels turned political leaders, combined with unhealed wounds left over from the long civil war that preceded South Sudan's independence from Khartoum in 2011.

The fighting is between soldiers loyal to Kiir against mutinous troops who sided with Machar, but has also taken on an ethnic dimension, pitting Kiir's Dinka tribe against militia forces from Machar's Nuer people.

WORSE YET TO COME

Many of the fragile gains made by the billions of dollars of international development aid that poured in after independence have been lost.

"The war risks tearing the country further apart and is pulling in regional states," the ICG said, pointing to a plan by regional nations to send in military forces in addition to UN peacekeepers.

Neighbouring Uganda has sent in troops and fighter jets to back the government, while Information Minister Michael Makuei has accused "forces from Sudan" of backing Machar, although he stopped short of actively accusing the government in Khartoum of interfering.

Members of the White Army, a South Sudanese anti-government militia, attend a rally in Nasir on April 14, 2014. Conflict in South Sudan has triggered a serious risk of famine that will kill up to 50,000 children within months if immediate action is not taken, the UN has warned. The African country has experienced high levels of malnutrition since it gained independence in 2011, UNICEF said, and conditions have worsened since ethnic conflict broke out between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and supporters of his former deputy Riek Machar. AFP/PHOTO

Back at the camp Machar predicts, gloomily, that "this will be a regional conflict".

He says he is "looking for funding" but rejects accusations that he is seeking support from neighbouring Sudan, old friends who backed him during the 1983-2005 war.

Rival gunmen from Sudan's war-torn Darfur are accused of fighting on both sides in South Sudan.

"Worse is yet to come," Jonathan Veitch, the UNICEF chief in South Sudan said last week, warning if the war is not stopped, there will be "child malnutrition on a scale never before experienced here."

The United States, the key backer of South Sudan's move to independence, has threatened targeted sanctions.

Experts say sanctions would be symbolic, but they fear they would have little positive impact.

"Many ordinary people seem to think that it is about time world powers spoke up against the absurdity of this war," said Jok Madut Jok, a former top government official who is now head of the Sudd Institute think tank.

But he also said he fears sanctions would mean little to rebels stationed in the remote bush, while the government could be pushed "into further rogue behaviour, having nothing more to lose."

Members of the White Army, a South Sudanese anti-government militia, attend a rally in Nasir on April 14, 2014. Conflict in South Sudan has triggered a serious risk of famine that will kill up to 50,000 children within months if immediate action is not taken, the UN has warned. The African country has experienced high levels of malnutrition since it gained independence in 2011, UNICEF said, and conditions have worsened since ethnic conflict broke out between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and supporters of his former deputy Riek Machar. AFP/PHOTO

OVER 100 KILLED

Over 100 people have been killed in a cattle raid in South Sudan's Warrap state, a local information minister told UN radio, the latest atrocity in the war-torn nation.

"We lost about 28 civilians" in a remote cattle herders' camp in the remote northern state, Warrap state Information Minister Bol Dhel told the UN-backed Miraya FM radio, adding that police and soldiers then chased the attackers, killing 85.

"Some of them (the attackers) were recaptured on the swamp areas going to Unity State," Dhel added.

South Sudan is awash with guns, and raids between rival communities and ethnic groups are common.

However, the country has also been riven by a brutal civil war since mid-December in which thousands have been killed and forced around a million people to flee their homes.

The fighting is between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir against mutinous troops who sided with Riek Machar, sacked as vice-president in 2013.

The conflict has also taken on an ethnic dimension, pitting Kiir's Dinka tribe against militia forces from Machar's Nuer people.

However, it was not immediately clear if the cattle raid was connected to the ongoing conflict.