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Britain to Evacuate Its Citizens From South Sudan Fatal Assault and Fears of War as Turmoil Builds in South Sudan
(about 9 hours later)
LONDON — In a sign of mounting international concern about fighting in South Sudan, Britain said Thursday that it had dispatched an airplane to evacuate British nationals as clashes were reported to have spread following claims of an attempted coup. A political crisis in South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, worsened significantly on Thursday, as a deadly assault hit a United Nations peacekeeping base, the number of civilians seeking refuge in the organization’s other facilities there exceeded 30,000 and diplomats expressed fears about the potential for a civil war.
The Foreign Office said that around 150 of the estimated 500 Britons in the newly created country had been in touch with British officials, many of them wanting to leave the country. The developments came a day after the South Sudanese Army said that it had lost control of a town in the north of the country. Britain began evacuating its citizens on Thursday. The United States suspended operations at its embassy in Juba, the capital, this week and strongly advised Americans to leave.
South Sudan declared its independence in July 2011, after years of struggle to break away from the Arab-dominated north of Sudan. But in the past few days, President Salva Kiir has accused his former vice president, Riek Machar, of attempting to overthrow him — a charge Mr. Machar denied Wednesday. In New York, Jan Eliasson, the United Nations deputy secretary general, said that the peacekeeping force’s base in the town of Akobo in Jonglei State had been assaulted “and we have reports that lives are lost.” Later in the day, India’s United Nations ambassador, Asoke Mukerji, said three Indian peacekeepers in Akobo had been killed.
Tension has been building since Mr. Kiir dismissed his cabinet, including Mr. Machar, in July. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan, the peacekeeping force known by its acronym Unmiss, said in a statement that at the time of the assault by unidentified attackers, the Akobo base housed 43 Indian peacekeepers, six United Nations police advisers and two civilians of undisclosed nationalities, and about 30 South Sudanese who had sought refuge there from mayhem in the area.
The British Foreign Office did not announce when the plane would land in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, only that the planned evacuation would take place on Thursday. The peacekeeping force’s commanders were sending an aircraft to Akobo on Friday to evacuate the base, the statement said, and the mission “fully expects all forces, whatever their allegiance, to ensure the safety of Unmiss personnel and any civilians located inside mission premises.”
Diplomats told Reuters that as many as 500 people have been killed since Mr. Kiir appeared in a camouflage uniform at a televised news conference on Monday to say that his government had thwarted an attempt to overthrow it. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan reported on its Twitter feed on Thursday that civilians were seeking shelter at its facilities in six of South Sudan’s 10 states. Earlier Thursday, the mission reported on its Twitter account that 20,000 people were housed at its two compounds in Juba and up to 14,000 at its compound in Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, about 125 miles north of Juba.
The fighting has raised fears that the fledgling nation is headed toward civil war, adding to Africa’s woes at a time when France has sent troops to a former colony, the Central African Republic, farther to the west, to try to quell an escalation of sectarian strife. The United Nations Security Council was expected to hold an emergency meeting about South Sudan on Friday.
The United Nations has said that violence is spreading in remote areas of South Sudan, including the northern town of Bor, the capital of Jonglei state about 125 miles north of Juba, where ethnic tensions between followers of Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar had erupted into fighting at two Army barracks, according to Reuters. The situation in South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011, has been tense for months but it has quickly deteriorated in the past five days, when the president, Salva Kiir, accused his former vice president, Riek Machar, of attempting a military coup, which Mr. Machar denied. There have been unconfirmed reports that more than 500 people have been killed and that sectarian animosities between the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups have been inflamed.
Gérard Araud, the French ambassador to the United Nations and the current president of the Security Council, told the BBC in an interview that the fighting “has the potential for civil war” between the country’s two principal ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer. Gérard Araud, France’s United Nations ambassador and the current Council president, told the BBC that the fighting “has the potential for civil war,” a prospect that has alarmed neighbors in Africa, already worried by lawlessness in the Central African Republic and the chronic instability in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr. Araud said that the United Nations had 7,000 to 8,000 troops in South Sudan but that they would not intervene in the fighting because their mission was to protect civilians. Navi Pillay, the top human rights official at the United Nations, also expressed concern on Thursday about what she called the “rapidly deteriorating security situation in South Sudan and the consequences for the civilian population.” The risk that the fighting could acquire an ethnic dimension, she said, “is extremely high and could result in a dangerous situation.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Kiir was reported to have said that he was ready for talks. A group of East African foreign ministers is scheduled to travel to South Sudan on Thursday to try to mediate in the conflict. The United Nations, which has operated in South Sudan for years and aided its transition to independence, has a tense relationship with the government, and South Sudanese officials have accused the organization of taking sides in the simmering conflict with Sudan.
In a report on Wednesday, the International Crisis Group, a research group based in Brussels, said, “The scenario many feared but dared not contemplate looks frighteningly possible: South Sudan, the world’s newest state, is now arguably on the cusp of a civil war.” In April, seven United Nations employees and five Indian peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in Jonglei that South Sudan attributed to rebels. A year ago, the military, in what it called a miscommunication, shot down a United Nations helicopter, killing all four Russian crew members.
“What has for some time been a political crisis within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement has now spilled over into an army that has long been riven by internal problems, including ethnic divisions and tensions,” it added. “The blurred lines between these institutions, senior political figures and ethnic communities — as well as wide-scale arms proliferation — make the current situation particularly volatile.”

Rick Gladstone reported from New York, and Alan Cowell from London.