By ALAN COWELL and RICK GLADSTONE
A man and his son inside a United Nations peacekeeping base on Thursday in Juba, South Sudan, the world’s youngest country.
December 20, 2013, LONDON (The New York Times) — onnel from a base in South Sudan which came under lethal attack as a political crisis worsened significantly and President Obama warned that the world’s youngest country “stands at the precipice.”
The number of civilians seeking refuge in the United Nations’ other facilities there exceeded 30,000 and diplomats expressed fears about the potential for a civil war.
Britain, which began evacuating its nationals on Thursday, and said Friday it would send a second airplane to Juba, the capital. “We strongly advise all British nationals in South Sudan to leave the country if they can do so safely,” the Foreign Office said, adding that it might become more difficult to escape if the situation worsened. The United States suspended operations at its embassy in Juba this week and offered similar advice to Americans.
On its Twitter feed, the United Nations peacekeeping force in South Sudan said early on Friday it had sent four helicopters to rescue personnel at its peacekeeping base in the town of Akobo in Jonglei State where India said on Thursday that three of its peacekeepers had been killed when it was attacked.
The mission said it had “received assurances from forces in charge of Akobo town that its helicopters will be permitted to land safely this morning.” Earlier, Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, said communications with the base in Akobo had been lost.
At the time of the assault by unidentified attackers, the Akobo base housed 43 Indian peacekeepers, six United Nations police advisers, two civilians of undisclosed nationality, and about 30 South Sudanese who had sought refuge there from fighting in the area, the United Nations said.
Earlier Friday, the mission said on Twitter that a total of 34,000 people had taken refuge at its facilities. Around 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 mission said.
The United Nations Security Council was expected to hold an emergency meeting about South Sudan on Friday.
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, since 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. released Thursday night, President Obama said 45 American troops had been sent to South Sudan to “support the security of U.S. personnel and our embassy.”
“In recent years, against great odds, South Sudan has made great progress toward breaking the cycle of violence that characterized much of its history,” the letter said. “Today, that future is at risk. South Sudan stands at the precipice. Recent fighting threatens to plunge South Sudan back into the dark days of its past.”
Navi Pillay, the top human rights official at the United Nations, expressed concern on Thursday about what she called the “rapidly deteriorating security situation in South Sudan and the consequences for the civilian population.”
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 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.
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