Juba (AFP) - South Sudan's army and rebels fought heavy battles for a third day Wednesday with scores of casualties, the defence minister said, a day ahead of a planned restart of peace talks.
Heavy shelling was reported in several sites in the oil-rich northern state of Upper Nile, including around Renk and Melut, with Defence Minister Kuol Manyang claiming that rebel chief Riek Machar had lost control of his forces.
Manyang said the small settlement of Kaka was "under heavy artillery bombardment", saying that some 80 government soldiers had been wounded in the three days of battle, while another 50 are missing.
He said six soldiers were confirmed killed but that the full extent of those dead would not be known until things calm down.
Regional bloc IGAD has set a March 5 deadline for Kiir and Machar to reach a final peace agreement, but previous deadlines have been repeatedly ignored despite the threat of sanctions.
Information Minister Michael Makuei told AFP that the government were still planning on attending the restart of peace talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, which are due to begin again on Thursday.
Fighting broke out in South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy Machar of attempting a coup.
Over two dozen armed forces -- including government soldiers and allied militia backed by Ugandan soldiers on one side, and a range of rebel factions on the other -- have been battling it out for the last 14-months despite numerous ceasefire agreements.
The UN estimates that 2.5 million people are in a state of emergency or crisis, just steps short of famine.
No overall death toll for the war has been kept by the government, rebels or the UN, but the International Crisis Group estimates that at least 50,000 people have been killed.
Late on Tuesday a gunman shot dead a British aid worker in the capital Juba.
The Briton, who was working for the US aid organisation the Carter Center, was killed by a gunman who followed him into his compound in Juba, according to presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny.
Source http://news.yahoo.com/south-sudan-rebels-battle-army-ahead-peace-talks-132051298.html
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