South Sudan: US citizens evacuated from Bor

UN humanitarian co-ordinator Toby Lanzer (centre) with wounded South Sudanese civilians transported by UN helicopter from Bor to the capital, Juba. He said 15,000 are seeking protection at a UN base in Bor. Photograph: AP

Civilian helicopters evacuated US citizens from a city in South Sudan^[1] that has seen bouts of heavy machine-gun fire, but 3,000 citizens from countries including Canada, Britain and Kenya remain trapped there, a UN official has said.

Toby Lanzer, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator, said Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians were also among 15,000 people seeking protection at a UN base in Bor, a city that could see increasing violence in coming days.

The death toll from a week of violence in South Sudan has likely surpassed 1,000^[2], though there are no firm numbers available, he said on Monday. The number of internal refugees is likely to exceed 100,000, said Lanzer, who is seeking urgent financial assistance from the international community.

"I can't afford any delays from donor capitals right now," he said in a phone call. "Never has there been a greater time of need in South Sudan."

Bor is the city where three US military aircraft ^[3]were fired upon on Saturday, forcing the Ospreys – advanced helicopter-airplane hybrids – to abort their evacuation mission. On Sunday, the US evacuated its citizens by civilian American and UN helicopters.

The US over the past week has evacuated 380 Americans and 300 others from South Sudan, which has witnessed vicious, ethnically targeted violence. Military commanders loyal to the country's ousted vice-president have defected and say they are in control of areas that hold lucrative oil fields.

Lanzer, who spent the weekend in Bor, said the city was the scene of tense, sporadic clashes and "fairly consistent gunfire and heavy machine-gun fire".

The violence began late on 15 December. The president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said last week that an attempted military coup had triggered the violence, and the blame was placed on former vice-president Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Other officials have since said a fight between Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard triggered the fighting, which spiralled across the country.

Analysts suggested that a tribal militia known as the White Army – from the Lou Nuer ethnic group – was moving toward Bor, which is populated by Dinkas. Lanzer said he could not say anything with precision about those reports.

"Everybody knows that Bor is a strategic location," he said. "It would be difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which Bor is completely calm and safe over the coming days," he said, adding that he thought violence could become "very heavy", which is why the UN was fortifying its position there.

The US over the weekend deployed about 46 troops to help evacuate American citizens. That was in addition to 45 troops sent to the capital, Juba, last week to protect the US embassy. Four US troops were wounded in the evacuation attempt on Saturday.

President Barack Obama over the weekend sent a letter to congressional leaders letting them know he may take further military action in South Sudan to protect US citizens, personnel and property.

Fighting continued over the weekend, as the central government acknowledged it had lost control of Bentiu, the capital of Unity, a key oil-producing state.

East African leaders are leading diplomatic efforts to avoid a full-blown civil war. South Sudan experienced decades of war with Sudan, which it peacefully broke away from in 2011.

References

1. ^{^} More from the Guardian on South Sudan (www.theguardian.com)
2. ^{^} The death toll from a week of violence in South Sudan has likely surpassed 1,000 (www.theguardian.com)
3. ^{^} three US military aircraft (www.theguardian.com)