Tension in South Sudan: US government orders non-emergency personnel to leave country

The U.S. government ordered its non-emergency personnel to leave South Sudan as soon as possible Sunday due to tensions in the country.

The State Department order came in the wake of fighting last week between an armed group called the White Army and the country's forces, which shook the fragile peace deal reached in 2018 between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar after a bloody five-year civil war.

South Sudanese soldiers surrounded Machar's home in Juba, South Sudan's capital, last Wednesday and several of his allies were arrested after members of the White Army (linked to Machar) seized a military post in the north of the country.

Earlier this week, South Sudanese forces arrested two government ministers and a deputy army chief allied to Machar, reported the AP.

Last Friday saw an attack on a United Nations (U.N.) helicopter conducting an assessment operation in the north of the country. A South Sudanese general and dozens of South Sudanese soldiers were killed in the incident.

'An alarming regression'

The U.N. Human Rights Commission in South Sudan warned last Saturday that "an alarming regression" is taking place in the country.

South Sudan's civil war, which broke out two years after it gained independence by seceding from Sudan in 2011, has left 400,000 dead.