South Sudan conflict: key issues in worsening war

SCALE: Tens of thousands feared killed and over a million people have been forced to flee their homes, many as refugees to neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda.

REBEL AMBITIONS: Machar has branded Kiir a "dictator" and says he wants to topple him.

Militarily, he wants to seize the country's crucial oilfields, which accounted for some 95 percent of government income before the war.

Stuck far out in the bush and disadvantaged by limited ammunition and fuel for vehicles, Machar is unlikely to be in a position to take the capital Juba as he claims, security experts say.

AID CRISIS: The United Nations has warned that over a million people are at risk of famine, with some five million needing aid. Around 80,000 civilians are sheltering inside cramped UN peacekeeper bases fearing they will be attacked.

Members of the White Army, a South Sudanese anti-government militia, attend a rally in Nasir on Apri …

Both sides are accused of carrying out ethnic massacres.

FORCES: Kiir's army is backed by troops and fighter jets from neighbouring Uganda.

Machar's loosely allied mutinous soldiers fight alongside an ethnic militia called the White Army, named for the ash the warriors smear on themselves as warpaint and mosquito repellent.

The White Army comes from Machar's Nuer tribe, the country's second largest group. It has long fought rivals over cattle and women, including from Kiir's Dinka tribe, the country's largest.

Some 8,000 UN peacekeepers are scattered between the warring sides, over a country the size of Spain and Portugal combined, but with mud roads often impassable in the current wet season.

South Sudanese rebel leader and former vice president Riek Machar sits in an army barracks in South  …

PEACE EFFORTS: A January ceasefire signed in Ethiopia is in tatters.

The latest round in slow-moving talks is due in late April, but so far delegates have largely squabbled in luxury hotels about who can attend.

The US and European Union have threatened possible sanctions.

OTHER NATIONS: As well as forces from Uganda, fighters from neighbouring Sudan's war-torn Darfur region are also reported to be involved.

Darfuri rebel fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) are accused of backing the government.

South Sudan's government accuses Janjaweed militia -- the once pro-Khartoum government force accused of genocidal killings in Darfur -- of backing Machar.

Both sides deny the role of Sudanese forces.

IMPACT: Most of the fragile gains made by the billions of dollars of international development aid that poured in after independence have been lost.

Oil production has slumped, and in many areas, stopped altogether. Oil income is key for both South Sudan and Sudan, which exports the oil.

Hardest hit by the violence are the north and northeastern oil regions of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states.

The few major towns there have been razed to the ground.

• Politics & Government
• Unrest, Conflicts & War
• South Sudan
• Riek Machar

Source http://news.yahoo.com/worsening-war-south-sudan-142541234.html