A
coup has been foiled in South Sudan, according to its minister for
foreign affairs. Tension has been mounting in the world’s youngest
nation since South Sudan president Salva Kiir (pictured) fired his
deputy Riek Machar in July. Photograph: Goran Tomasevic/Reuter
South Sudan has foiled an attempted coup led by a group of soldiers and politicians, according to its foreign minister.
Barnaba
Marial Benjamin said some troops within the main army base raided the
weapons store and were repulsed. The number of casualties from the
fighting is still unknown.
Mr Benjamin said some politicians had been arrested but could not confirm if former vice president Riek Machar, who he said led the attempt, was among them. The president has ordered a dawn to dusk curfew.
Tension has been mounting in the world’s youngest nation since South Sudan president Salva Kiir fired Mr Machar as his deputy in July. Mr Machar has said he may contest the presidency in 2015.
Explosions
and sporadic gunfire rang out early today in the capital Juba amid
repeated clashes between factions of the military.
Heavily
armed soldiers patrolled the streets amid the gunfire emerging from the
main army barracks. The streets were largely empty of civilians, with
most residents staying indoors. Juba airport was closed.
Mr
Machar said after he was fired that if the country is to be united it
cannot tolerate a “one man’s rule or it cannot tolerate dictatorship.”
His
removal, part of a wider dismissal of the entire cabinet by Mr Kiir,
had followed reports of a power struggle within the ruling party.
While
Mr Kiir is leader of the ruling SPLM party, many of the dismissed
ministers, including Mr Machar, were key figures in the rebel movement
that fought a decades-long war against Sudan that led to South
Sudan’s independence in 2011.
The local Sudan
Tribune newspaper reported on its website that military clashes erupted
late yesterday between members of the presidential guard in fighting
that seemed to pit soldiers from Mr Kiir’s Dinka tribe against those
from the Nuer tribe of Machar.
Hilde Johnson, special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for South Sudan, said she was “deeply concerned” over the fighting.
“I
urge all parties in the fighting to cease hostilities immediately and
exercise restraint. I have been in touch regularly with the key leaders,
including at the highest levels to call for calm,” she said.
South
Sudan has experienced bouts of ethnic violence, especially in rural
Jonglei state, since the country peacefully broke away from Sudan after
a brutal civil war.
AP
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