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March 13, 2014

A young girl walks through a heavily flooded part of the Tomping camp for internally displaced people after heavy rains started to fall in Juba today. – AFP pic, March 13, 2014.South Sudan faces possible famine if warring forces continue to flout a ceasefire deal, US and EU envoys warned today, after almost three months of raging conflict left thousands dead.

"The parties have failed to respect their commitment to the January 23 cessation of hostilities," said United States envoy Donald Booth, at a meeting of regional leaders in Ethiopia on the conflict in the world's youngest country.

"This failure has led to thousands of additional deaths and an ever worsening humanitarian situation, with South Sudan facing a possible famine," he added.

South Sudan's government has been at war with rebel groups since December 15, when a clash between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar snowballed into full-scale fighting.

Over 930,000 civilians have fled their homes since fighting began, including over quarter of million leaving for neighbouring nations as refugees, according to the United Nations.

"If things continue as they are, the spectre of famine looms," European Union envoy Alexander Rondos said.

"The rains are coming, and if people cannot go and plant there will not be sufficient stocks within months... This should be a matter of the greatest urgency."

The UN warns that fighting has stopped the planting of crucial crops, while giant stores of the World Food Programme have been entirely ransacked, increasing the challenges for those struggling to stem a ballooning humanitarian crisis in what was already one of the world's poorest nations.

Heavy fighting has continued despite the January deal, with the army on Thursday reporting clashes in the strategic oil city of Malakal, one of the hardest-fought battlegrounds in the conflict.

Over 75,000 civilians are still crammed into UN peacekeeping bases in fear of revenge attacks, with conditions becoming increasingly squalid as weeks drag into months and flooding caused by heavy rains.

Both the US and EU envoys were speaking at a special one-day summit in Addis Ababa of leaders – including Kiir – from the East African bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad).

Seyoum Mesfin, Igad's chief mediator to slow-moving peace talks, said the continued fighting "only corroborated that the parties are not serious about ending the war."

Seyoum said leaders had been "unequivocal" in warning the two sides to "heed the call of the regional and international community" and stick to the deal they have already agreed.

"Neither Igad's appeal for peace nor ours is about telling the parties what to do," Booth added. "It is about appealing to them to do the right thing."

The meeting comes a day after the African Union opened a special commission of inquiry into atrocities and war crimes, including brutal ethnic tit-for-tat killings, rape and looting.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who hosted the talks, warned leaders they "should say 'no' to spoilers who are not interested in peace".

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has sent in troops to back Kiir's forces and fight rebel troops, was also present.

Igad leaders discussed the sending of a "regional stabilisation force" to be on the ground by mid-April, Seyoum said, although it remains unclear if any troops sent would operate under the mandate of the current UN peacekeeping mission in the country.

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, whose nation is heavily dependent on the oil from landlocked South Sudan which transits through Khartoum to the coast, was also at the meeting.

Stalled talks between Kiir's government and the rebels, which have made little progress, are due to resume on March 20.

South Sudan this week opened the trial of four opposition leaders for treason, but Igad has urged their release. – AFP, March 13, 2014.