AFRICA/SOUTH SUDAN - Internally displaced persons and Sudanese refugees are the first victims of three weeks of clashes

Juba ( Agenzia Fides) - The clashes between soldiers loyal to President Salva Kiir and those affiliated to former Vice President Riek Machar, have created a serious humanitarian emergency in several areas of South Sudan.
The most affected are the more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees who have found refuge in the camps of Yida and Ajuong Thok in the State of Unità. These people are facing the dramatic choice of remaining in refugee camps without any assistance or to return to the Nuba Mountains, in South Kordofan, the State of Sudan, upset by the fighting between the army of Khartoum and rebels of the SPLM -N (Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North).
Even the people of Southern Sudan are suffering because of the political and military crisis in the Country. One of the most dramatic situations is in Awerial, in the State of the Lakes (in the center of South Sudan), where more than 70,000 displaced persons, a majority of them women and children, are deprived of assistance. The displaced are from Bor, the capital of Jonglei State, in the center of the fighting between the troops of Kiir and Machar. According to estimates by humanitarian organizations, the three weeks of fighting between rival factions have forced more than 200,000 civilians to flee .
Today, January 3, talks between representatives of Kiir and Machar open in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to try and put an end to the violence. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 03/01/2014)