Slap sanctions on South Sudan — UN chief

“President Salva Kiir, who was leading the country, accused his vice president, Riek Machar, of an attempted coup [in 2013]”. In some areas, the corrugated metal, sticks and other materials that once were shops or homes had collapsed. Private chartered planes flew foreigners out of Juba’s reopened airport Tuesday, as regional carriers including Kenya Airways had cancelled flights there.

Japan has urged dozens of its nationals including aid workers in Juba to leave the country and dispatched military aircraft to evacuate them following the fighting.

Neighboring Uganda will send troops to Juba to evacuate its citizens, said Ugandan army spokesman Paddy Ankunda.

South Sudanese residents of Juba are attempting to flee east, McDonald says, while worldwide workers are planning to evacuate.

“The latest fighting since Friday has displaced 36,000 people” in and around Juba, said a spokesman of the Coordinating Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs of the UN (OCHA), Vanessa Huguenin, adding that this figure was likely to evolve due to the volatility of the situation.

Aid groups are warning about the lack of clean water for the tens of thousands of people sheltering in various sites around Juba as water tankers have not been able to make deliveries.

Inside a crowded United Nations camp, people tried to pursue their daily lives behind shiny coils of razor wire.

“A peace agreement was signed past year, but very clearly it is not holding itself together, as both factions of the army are still fighting”, he says.

Explosions and heavy weapons fire continued for a fifth day Monday, including attacks by government forces on the United Nations peacekeeping base and a camp housing some 28,000 thousand displaced civilians.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General continues to call for President Kiir and First Vice-President Riek Machar to ensure that this order is conveyed through all security force chains of command in their respective forces so that soldiers return to their barracks, the cessation of hostilities is achieved and order established.

Mr Kiir’s announcement of a ceasefire comes after his forces overran an opposition base in Juba and killed 35 bodyguards of Mr Machar, according to opposition officials.

The latest fighting has awakened fears that South Sudan’s other ethnic groups will be drawn in.