Salva Kiir

The warring factions in Sudan have agreed to the seven-day truce, South Sudan's foreign ministry in Juba said in an official statement on Tuesday.

Exhausted Sudanese and foreigners joined growing crowds at Sudan's main seaport Tuesday, waiting to be evacuated from the chaos-stricken nation. After more than two weeks of fighting, areas of the capital of Khartoum appear increasingly abandoned.

War and famine have forced more than 2 million children in South Sudan to flee their homes, creating the most worrying refugee crisis in the world, the United Nations said May 8.

South Sudan on Feb. 20 declared famine in some parts of the country, with more than three years of war leaving nearly five million hungry in what aid groups called a "man-made" tragedy.

Isaiah Chol Aruai, chairman of South Sudan's National Bureau of Statistics, said some parts of the northern Greater Unity region "are classified in famine, or... risk of famine."

This is not an article on South Sudan, which is just as well because the conflicts there are almost fractal in their complexity. The mini-war last weekend between the forces of President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar, which killed more than 270 people and saw tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships used in the capital, Juba, is part of a pattern that embraces the whole country.

Fighting at a United Nations compound sheltering people fleeing conflict in South Sudan has killed 18 people, including two Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) workers, the international medical aid group said. 

The United States on Aug. 19 circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution proposing an arms embargo and targeted sanctions against South Sudan if President Salva Kiir refuses to sign a peace accord ending the country's civil war.

South Sudan rebels opened fire on a UN peacekeeping base sheltering 30,000 civilians, killing one and wounding six in a possible war crime, the UN said late July 1.

Gunmen in South Sudan have raped girls, seized boys to become soldiers and torched towns in some of the heaviest fighting seen in the 17-month-long civil war, the United Nations said May 12. 
 

The UN children's agency said on March 1 it fears hundreds of boys were kidnapped last month in the northeast of South Sudan, raising suspicions that the abductors were from a pro-government militia.