South Sudan's Salva Kiir visits Uganda after Khartoum trip

April 8, 2014 (JUBA) - South Sudan President Salva Kiir visited neighbouring Uganda, days after holding bi-lateral talks with his Sudanese counterpart, Omer El-Bashir in Khartoum.

South Sudan’s Salva Kiir with Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni in Entebbe on April 8, 2014 (PPS)

But while the president’s visit to the Sudanese capital was publicly announced, his Kampala trip was kept out of the public domain.

A brief statement from Uganda’s State House said the duo held discussions centered on various matters of bi-lateral and mutual interest between the two countries.

President Kiir was among regional leaders that attended the 20th commemoration of the 1994 genocide, which was held on Monday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

The young nation has been unstable since the mid-December outbreak of violence, which President Kiir largely blamed on the country’s former vice-president, Riek Machar.

The conflict has already claimed more than 10,000 lives. The United Nations estimates that some 3.7 million people in the country are now "severely food insecure" while around one million have been displaced by the violence.

This is president Kiir’s second trip to Uganda since conflict erupted last year. The first visit following the conflict was in January.

In March, however, Juba agreed on the deployment of military forces IGAD, an East African trading bloc that is leading mediation efforts between South Sudan’s warring camps. The regional forces are expected to eventually replace Ugandan forces, deployed in the new nation in December last year allegedly to evacuate its nationals.

(ST)