Roundup: Concerns mounting over humanitarian disaster in S. Sudan amid fierce fighting

Concerns over a possible humanitarian disaster in South Sudan are mounting due to the withdrawal of a number of aid bodies amid escalating military confrontations between government forces and the rebels in the oil-rich Unity State.

The Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said separately on Saturday that they have pulled out their staff from Leer town in Unity State due to the heavy fighting.

"We are afraid that a humanitarian disaster would happen in Unity State," Samuel Peter, South Sudanese political analyst, told Xinhua on Sunday.

He pointed out that thousands of civilians are exposed to armed attacks, while suffering from lack of food, water and health care.

"Definitely the withdrawal of the international aid organizations from Leer and other areas in Unity State will have negative effects on the civilians there," he noted.

According to the United Nations, around 100,000 people have been uprooted last week due to renewed clashes in South Sudan.

The South Sudan rebel movement, led by former Vice President Riek Machar, said on Sunday the government forces are systematically targeting the civilians in the areas controlled by the rebels to force them to seek refuge outside the country.

"There are systematic attacks against the areas controlled by the movement, particularly Leer town, the birthplace of Dr. Riek Machar," Manawa Peter, Machar's spokesman, told Xinhua over phone from the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

"The government systematically targets the sites of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) who gathered at Leer area under the supervision of the UN, where the government seeks to force those IDPs to leave the camps and move outside South Sudan," he noted.

He expressed concern over the conditions of the civilians in the Unity State amid the government attacks, saying "the civilians are facing difficult situations after the government forced the humanitarian organizations to leave the area."

In the meantime, South Sudan army spokesman Philip Aguer on Sunday confirmed that there were military confrontations between government forces and the rebels in the Unity State.

"Our forces are confronting the rebel troops which are targeting government positions and vital utilities in Unity State," Aguer told Xinhua over phone.

South Sudan, which only became independent in 2011, plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors head by his former deputy Riek Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes have left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.9 million people to flee their homes. Enditem