JUBA
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has deployed forces to Maban county in the Upper Nile state to secure the airfield and protect U.N. facilities, personnel and civilians taking shelter inside UN facilities.
"We have dispatched a unit of peacekeepers in four armored personnel carriers from Melut (also in Upper Nile) to protect U.N. and humanitarian personnel, as well as civilians who have taken refuge in U.N. facilities," UNMISS spokesperson Joseph Contreras told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.
Six aid workers have been killed since violence erupted in Maban, home to a major aid operation, on Sunday.
Contreras said that aid workers have suspended their activities and many have taken refuge inside the main compound of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
"Humanitarian aid personnel are in fear and not in position to go on with their duties," he added.
"We are concerned that there are 127,000 refugees there and any evacuation of aid workers would be dire for them," said the UNMISS spokesperson.
South Sudan has been shaken by violence since last December when President Salva Kiir accused sacked vice president Riek Machar of plotting to overthrow his regime.
Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have been displaced in subsequent fighting, while large swathes of the population continue to face an increasingly grave humanitarian crisis.
The UNMISS has blamed the killings on a local militia group, the Mabanese Defense Forces.
"The militia group is reportedly targeting civilians of Nuer origin after they clashed with defecting Nuer soldiers and suffered casualties," it said in a release Tuesday.
Nuer is the tribe of Machar. Together with Kiir's Dinka, they account for some 80 percent of South Sudan's total population of nearly 11 million.
"The Mission calls upon local, state and national authorities to bring to justice the individuals responsible for these murders as soon as possible to halt the ongoing descent into lawlessness in Maban County," UNMISS said.
By Okech Francis
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en
