US Sends 47 Soldiers to Protect US Interests in South Sudan

The Secretary General of the Sudanese Expatriates Affairs Organ, Haj Magid Siwar, expected the launch of three flights per day to evacuate Sudanese from Juba.

Women rest against a United Nations vehicle as they take cover from fighting on the perimeter of the United Nations base and compound in Juba, South Sudan, on July 8.

What is predictable, to an extent, is the weather.

In the meantime, the political sector of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) held exceptional meeting on Thursday to discuss the developments of the situations in South Sudan. Thousands of refugees are expected to flow into Uganda in the next few days, though that country is already hosting some 235,000 South Sudanese. That means fighting in the near future will likely be limited to cities.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the us deployment came at the request of the State Department, amid a fragile ceasefire that has held so far. United Nations officials asked repeatedly for the fighters to respect the global laws that protect their sites and personnel, but the calls were ignored.

“We are all shocked by that, and we condemn strongly this attack”, said the Chinese ambassador to Uganda, Zhao Yali.

Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the Security Council government forces are obstructing United Nations personnel “every step of the way”, making it hard to ascertain what has gone on since the fighting erupted between the government and rebel forces last week.

BBC Sudan analyst James Copnall says the latest clashes have traumatized and Juba shredded a peace deal between Kiir and Machar, agreed last August.

“You can expect us to stay” if fighting flared again and more people wanted to leave, he added.

Largely Christian South Sudan won its independence from Sudan, a majority Muslim country, in 2011 after years of fighting.

The recent violence in Juba echoed the fighting that triggered the civil war and marks a fresh blow to last year’s peace deal to end the bitter conflict that began when President Salva Kiir accused ex-rebel and now Vice President Riek Machar of plotting a coup.

Tens of thousands were killed.

Machar has stayed out of sight since taking part in a July 8 news conference with Kiir as government and opposition forces battled outside the compound and in other parts of the capital. Fighting also escalated in Eastern Equatoria state, and aid groups were forced to suspend their work there.

The move by western countries to evacuate their citizens has been seen by some analysts as abandoning the world’s youngest of the country at the time of need.

United States’ President Obama has ordered 47 USA troops to South Sudan to help protect the American embassy in the country, days after an outbreak of violence in the newly formed nation.