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 An official in Bor, north of Juba, said soldiers attacked each
other at two military barracks and one journalist said troops loyal
to Vice President Riek Machar now controlled them, suggesting
violence was increasingly running along ethnic lines.
Soldiers in the capital Juba have clashed since Sunday, killing up
to 500 people, in what President Salva Kiir said was an attempted
coup launched by Machar's supporters.
The president sacked Machar in July and political tensions have
simmered since then in the oil producing nation.
According to the online journal Sudan Tribune, Machar denied any
role in the fighting or any coup attempt.
In Bor, where Nuer soldiers loyal to Machar in 1991 massacred
hundreds of Dinka, the ethnic group of Kiir, the locals feared the
fighting could spill beyond the barracks.
"Last night there was fighting in two military barracks," Hussein
Maar, deputy governor of Jonglei state, told Reuters, although he
said the town of Bor was calm.
A journalist in Bor told Reuters by telephone that troops led by
commander Peter Gadet, a Machar ally, had taken control of the
bases, abandoned by the outnumbered Dinka soldiers. But details were
sketchy and according to another account only one base was in the
hands of Machar's allies.
The United Nations in South Sudan reported fighting on Wednesday
morning in Bor area, saying on its Twitter feed that more than 1,000
civilians sought refuge in the U.N. compound.
A broader conflict could threaten vital aid and be exploited by
neighboring Sudan, which has had persistent rows with Juba over
their undefined borders, oil and security. That would further hurt
efforts to build a functioning state in the south.
EVACUATION
In Juba, residents reported a tense calm after sporadic gunfire
overnight, with traffic returning to the streets. But the U.S. State Department said it was organizing evacuation
flights and Britain said it was gathering the names of any citizens
who wanted to leave. Other Western nations were expected to follow.
Many aid workers live and work in Juba.
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The government said it arrested 10 people, including seven former
ministers, over the "foiled coup" and wanted to question several
others, including Machar.
Diplomats said the United Nations had reports of between 400 and 500
people killed and up to 800 wounded in the nation that declared
independence in 2011 from Sudan, after decades of civil conflict
that left the south with barely any tarmac roads.
"Most people are scared they might be confronted with a mob or see
dead bodies," said one aid worker in Juba, adding that the city was
calmer on Wednesday morning, after residents awoke to heavy gunfire
and artillery blasts on Monday and Tuesday.
Political tensions have been mounting since Machar's dismissal. The
former vice president has said he would run for president and has
accused Kiir of being dictatorial.
Kiir had said before the clashes that his rivals were reviving rifts
that provoked infighting in the 1990s. He has faced public criticism
for doing little to improve life in one of Africa's poorest nations.
"Salva must recognize that the charge of his being 'dictatorial' has
taken deep hold, and he must do what is necessary to shed the label
as much as possible," South Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote in an
assessment of the violence.
(Writing and additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic and Edmund
Blair; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
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