Three US military aircraft attempting to evacuate American citizens from a remote region of South Sudan came under fire on Saturday as gun battles raged between the country's military and rebel militia Four American service personnel were wounded in the attack.
The aircraft were hit while preparing to land in Bor, the capital of the state of Jonglei - scene of some of the nation's worst violence over the past week. A South Sudan official said violence against civilians there had resulted in bodies 'sprinkled all over town'.The US military said three CV-22 Ospreys - aircraft that can fly like a helicopter and plane - were 'participating in a mission to evacuate American citizens in Bor'. Gunfire had downed a UN helicopter in the state the previous day. Following the attack, the US aircraft were diverted to Entebbe in Uganda and the mission aborted. The injured personnel were flown on to Nairobi, Kenya, on board aUS Air Force C-17 for medical treatment, according to a military statement.
An official in the region, who insisted on anonymity, said theUS military had not informed the rebel commander in Bor - General Peter Gadet, who defected from the South Sudan military this week - that they intended to land, which may have led to the attack. US statements said the gunfire came from unknown forces.
Colonel Philip Aguer, South Sudan's military spokesman, said government troops were no longer in control of Bor, so the attack on the US aircraft should be blamed on rebel soldiers.
The US embassy in Juba has evacuated at least 450 expats from the city this week and had hoped to begin evacuations from Bor. The UN on Friday sent four helicopters to extract 40 peacekeepers from a base in Yuai, also in Jonglei, UN information officer Joe Contreras said. One helicopter was fired upon and executed an emergency landing in Upper Nile state, he said. There were no casualties.
South Sudan's information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, said South Sudanese ground troops, backed by the country's air force, were fighting rebels in Bor an effort to retake the state capital they lost earlier this week.
'There is fighting going on in Bor town, yes, because since morning they have continued to attack the civilian population,' Lueth said.
South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said this week that an attempted coup triggered this week's clashes, blaming the former vice-president, Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Officials have since attributed the outbreak of violence to Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard. . Hundreds have been killed in the violence, which the UN security council said on Friday could spread across the border and affect the entire region.
Speaking in Manila on Sunday, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, urged South Sudan's leaders 'to do everything in their power to ensure that their followers hear the message loud and clear that continued violence, ethnic and otherwise, is completely unacceptable and pose a dangerous threat to the future of their country'.
Kenya announced it was sending troops to evacuate 1,600 Kenyans stranded in South Sudan, many of them in Bor. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama dispatched American troops to help protect the US embassy in Juba. The US, Britain, Germany and Italy have all assisted their citizens in evacuating the country.
The south fought a decades-long war with Sudan before a peace deal in 2005 resulted in a referendum two years ago that resulted in South Sudan breaking away from the north and taking most of the region's oil wealth with it.
Posted by Unknown on Sunday, December 22, 2013 - Rating: 4.5
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