Uganda deploys troops to South Sudan amid unrest
Source: AP-Excite
By JASON STRAZIUSO and RODNEY MUHUMUZA
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) - Violence since mid-December in South Sudan has displaced up to 180,000 people, the United Nations said Monday, as regional leaders intensified efforts to bring South Sudan's president and his main political rival to the negotiating table.
A meeting of East African leaders last week said it "welcomed the commitment" by South Sudan's government to cease hostilities against rebels, but hopes for a cease-fire.
Riek Machar, the fugitive former vice president who now commands renegade troops, instead called for a negotiated cease-fire that includes a way to monitor compliance.
Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry said Monday that a regional bloc known as IGAD has named a Kenyan and an Ethiopian as special envoys who will "spearhead mediation and broker peace" between South Sudan President Salva Kiir and the opposition, the ministry said in a statement. IGAD members must create an environment "conducive" for both sides to participate in direct talks, it said.
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A young displaced girl starts crying after the relative she was with disappears into a row of latrines, at a United Nations compound which has become home to thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting, in the capital Juba, South Sudan Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013. Some 25,000 people live in two hastily arranged camps for the internally displaced in Juba and nearly 40,000 are in camps elsewhere in the country, two weeks after violence broke out in the capital and a spiralling series of ethnically-based attacks coursed through the nation, killing at least 1,000 people. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
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