Clashes erupted on Friday near South Sudan’s capital Juba between government troops and rebel forces, officials said, the latest violation of a ceasefire signed last month.
Warring factions signed the deal in Addis Ababa in December, aimed at ending the more than four years of fighting that has left the world’s youngest nation crippled on many fronts.
On Friday, the army’s spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said several people were killed after rebel troops attempted to seize a military outpost west of Juba held by Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
“At about 10:30 p.m. last night, bandits under the direct command of Lieutenant Colonel Chan Garang attacked the SPLA’s position at the north of Kapur,” Reuters quotes him to have said, referring to a high-ranking officer who defected from the government last year.
South Sudan’s fighting began in December 2013 following accusations by President Salva Kiir that his then-deputy Riek Machar was plotting a coup against his government. Machar denied the allegations but then went on to mobilize a rebel force to fight the government.
The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions others, prompting the United Nations to rank the country as Africa’s biggest refugee crisis.
The ceasefire is intended to revive a 2015 peace deal that collapsed in 2016 after heavy fighting erupted in Juba, with talks on a new power-sharing arrangement and a new date for polls scheduled to follow.
It is also designed to allow humanitarian groups access to civilians caught in the fighting.
