1000s FLEE SOUTH SUDAN EVERYDAY: UN

Juba, 6 Rabi’ul Awwal 1435/8 Januari 2013 (MINA) – The United Nations (UN) says the three-week conflict in South Sudan forces thousands of people out of their homes on a daily basis.

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Tuesday that more than 23,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled to the neighboring Uganda.

Haq added that about 62,000 civilians were also taking refuge at UN bases in the African country, including nearly 30,000 at two bases in the capital Juba.

Meanwhile, UN peacekeepers are on 24-hour patrols in Juba but the situation is yet tense there, said the spokesman, Press Tv quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The peacekeepers who were patrolling a highway in the northern Unity State, found most villages along the road from Mayom junction to Pariyang burned and looted, Haq said.

The political crisis in South Sudan began after President Salva Kiir accused Riek Machar, a former vice president, of attempting a coup. Reports say thousands of people have been killed in the violence since then.

The fighting between troops loyal to Kiir, who is from the Dinka ethnic group, and opposition leader Machar, a Nuer, erupted around Juba on December 15, 2013.

The South Sudanese president accused his archrival Machar of attempting to topple his government, but he said the coup attempt had been foiled.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 after its people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum for a split from the North.

The government in Juba is grappling with rampant corruption, unrest and conflict in the deeply impoverished but oil-rich nation, left devastated by decades of war. (T/P012/P04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)