World's Newest Country May Not Last
Updated: 12:55pm UK, Thursday 19 December 2013
By Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor
The world's newest country may not last the decade if the violence seen in South Sudan this week escalates.
Up to 500 people have died in days of fighting in the capital Juba and thousands, including foreign oil workers, are sheltering in or outside UN compounds.
Amid talk of a possible coup attempt 10 senior politicians, including former cabinet ministers have been arrested and a night-time curfew imposed.
The authorities deny that the violence is on tribal lines, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
South Sudan, an oil-rich country, became independent from Sudan in 2011 following a long guerrilla war but has yet to knit itself into a unified nation.
During the war years the main ethnic groups in southern Sudan, the Dinka and the Nuer, each formed militias to fight the Sudanese army. Now the South Sudanese army is made up of units which are still divided on tribal lines.
President Salva Kiir Mayardit is a Dinka. In July he dismissed the vice president, Riek Machar, who is Nuer, after Mr Machar announced he would compete for the presidency in the 2015 elections.
The fighting appears to have started after a Dinka unit was deployed at the presidential guard barracks which is dominated by soldiers who are Nuer. The Dinka came out on top, tensions rose throughout the capital, and the fighting spread.
Although the city is reported to be calmer today there have been incidents of inter-ethnic violence outside of the capital.
The UK has sent an aircraft to Juba to evacuate some of the estimated 500 Britons in the country and has temporarily withdrawn some staff and dependants from its embassy.
Other countries are taking similar measures but the airport is still open and some commercial flights are operating.
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