South Sudan says recaptures oil-producing state from rebels

By Carl Odera

JUBA Fri Jan 10, 2014 2:00pm GMT

"It happened this afternoon at 2.30 p.m.," (1130 GMT), army spokesman Philip Aguer told Reuters of the recapture of Bentiu, the capital of Unity state. "When you control Bentiu you control all the oilfields in Unity state."

There was no independent confirmation. More than three weeks of fighting have killed more than 1,000 people and driven 230,000 from their homes. The clashes have continued despite stuttering peace talks in neighbouring Ethiopia.

South Sudan's oil production fell by 45,000 barrels per day to 200,000 bpd after oilfields in Unity state were shut down due to fighting between rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar and the government of President Salva Kiir.

Upper Nile state is still pumping about 200,000 bpd, the government says.

Rebels accused neighbouring Uganda of launching air strikes against their positions, something Kampala has denied in public. Ugandan troops already patrol Juba's international airport and guard the presidential palace, at Kiir's request.

Separately, the United Nations accused both rebels and government forces of obstructing the aid response to the nation's humanitarian crisis.

Rebels had looted warehouses, commandeered aid agency vehicles and ransacked property in both Bentiu and the town of Bor, the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said.

Meanwhile, government authorities had hampered U.N. flights carrying supplies for peacekeepers and clinics and stopped some peacekeeper patrols, it said.

"These are clear violations of the agreement that regulates the United Nations' presence in South Sudan and is preventing UNMISS from implementing its mandate," mission chief Hilde Johnson said in a statement.

The fighting, often along ethnic lines, is the worst in South Sudan since it won independence from Sudan in 2011. The unrest threatens to destabilise fragile east Africa.

President Kiir's SPLA government forces have also been fighting to regain control of Bor, capital of the restive Jonglei state as peace talks make slow progress.

AIR STRIKES

In meetings in Ethiopia, the two camps are haggling over terms of a ceasefire. They were expected on Friday to submit their recommendations to a ceasefire proposal drafted by mediators.

Washington on Thursday cranked up the pressure for a deal, saying South Sudan risked losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid if the two sides did not end the violence in the fledgling democracy formed with strong U.S. support.

Banks, markets and bars were open as normal in the capital, Juba, but food prices have jumped, petrol pumps are running dry and the South Sudanese pound is weakening on the black market.

Hussein Mar Nyot, the spokesman for Machar's delegation in Ethiopia, said that the latest strikes by Ugandan warplanes occurred on January 8 and January9.

While Uganda has denied any air strikes, two Ugandan military sources with knowledge of the operations said they were aware of airborne attacks, adding that 1,500-1,800 Ugandan troops were inside South Sudan.

"In Bor our boys have been backing up the SPLA in the latest push to retake it," one Ugandan officer told Reuters. "Yesterday (Thursday) our MiGs conducted two bombings there."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has said east African nations would have to "defeat" Machar if he rejected a ceasefire, has come under fire at home for deploying troops across the border without seeking parliament's permission.

The assembly's speaker, Rebecca Kadaga, said she had received a letter from Museveni on Thursday asking parliament to hold an emergency session for a retrospective vote. The sitting will take place on January 14, she said.

(Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa and Richard Lough in Nairobi; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Alister Doyle)