South Sudan clashes despite ceasefire

South Sudan's government and rebel groups on Monday reported further fighting in the oil-rich north and on several other fronts; both sides blamed each other for breaking a ceasefire arrangement reached over the weekend.

Army spokesman Philip Aguer said that there was fighting in Upper Nile State, accusing the rebels of initiating the combat.

"The battle continued for a few minutes… and the attack was repelled," he told local radio.

However, rebel military spokesman Lul Ruai Koang blamed government troops for having "launched coordinated attacks" in the states of Unity and Upper Nile. Koang added that a rebel base in Joglei State was also "under heavy shelling."

"The government is entirely responsible for these unnecessary attacks motivated by its desires and attempts to recapture oil fields under our control," Koang said in a statement.

Colonel Aguer said that the fighting killed 24 rebels and five government soldiers. This information could not be independently verified.

IRC report: unspeakable abuse, threat of famine

The civil war in South Sudan, the world's youngest country since securing independence from Sudan in 2011, began last December, when President Salva Kiir accused his sacked deputy, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup. The conflict soon intensified and became more clearly demarcated along ethnic lines, between Kiir's Dinka and Machar's Nuer followers.

Aid agency the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Monday published a report on the situation in the country, warning of "unspeakable abuse and violence" and of the threat of famine if the fighting continues.

"Yet again we are seeing a humanitarian catastrophe where the most vulnerable are bearing the lethal brunt of a man-made political crisis that must be resolved immediately," IRC president David Miliband said. "Other global crises and the narrow avoidance of famine this year are no excuse for policymakers to allow this emergency to drift into the 'too difficult' box."

The IRC report said that food shortages and rising food prices are "threatening tens of thousands of children with starvation," saying aid agencies were unable to reach hundreds of thousands of the most at-risk people.

"Without an end to conflict… the crisis in South Sudan will turn into a hopeless cycle of aid dependency, ethnic slaughter and shameful sexual violence," it said.

In the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Saturday, Kiir and Machar used direct talks to reach a ceasefire deal for the country, with Monday's attacks seemingly the first example of the truce failing. The two leaders have signed several ceasefire deals this year seeking to halt the bloodshed, but none of them have held.

msh/tj (AFP, AP)