South Sudan calls UN genocide talk "fabricated lie"

South Sudan has termed claims that the country is approaching genocide a lie and a concoction of the UN to legitimize its existence in the war-torn nation.

President Salva Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told Xinhua on Friday that tribal skirmishes that have taken place in the past three years in the country had not deteriorated to the level of ethnic cleansing as alleged by UN human rights officials.

"First of all this statement is fabricated lie," Ateny said.

UN human rights officials warned recently that South Sudan was fast approaching a genocide situation reminiscent of the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

South Sudan has witnessed a rise in hate speech and targeted killings along ethnic lines mainly in Yei, some 150 km southwest of the capital Juba. Thousands of civilians have fled Yei to neighboring Uganda and DR Congo in the past weeks.

Ateny however said: "Whatever skirmishes happen among tribes in South Sudan are just like elsewhere in Africa but it has not reached the level of genocide."

South Sudan fell into civil war in December 2013. There have been killings targeting both Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups to whom the two rivals in the war -- President Kiir and sacked First Vice President Riek Machar belong respectively.

A peace deal signed last August under UN pressure led to short-lived reconciliation between the rival leaders, but failed to hold as fresh fighting erupted in July.

Some of those fleeing violence in Yei and seeking refuge in Uganda have accused the mainly-Dinka government troops of orchestrating terror killings, rape and looting on the pretext that those targeted support Machar-led opposition party.

"Yei is a state that has been shaken by the insurgency and the forces there are dealing with insurgency. And the army is not made up of only one tribe (Dinka) but even the sons of Yei," Ateny said.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in South Sudan conflicts since late 2013. Endit