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       US Sends 40 Soldiers to Protect Embassy, Personnel in South Sudan

   by Dan Joseph

   The U.S. military has deployed about 40 soldiers to South Sudan's
   capital following days of clashes that left hundreds dead and raised
   fears of renewed civil war.
   The military's Africa Command says the troops were sent to Juba to
   safeguard the U.S. Embassy and help carry out a State Department order
   for non-essential personnel to leave the country.
   Other countries including Germany and India are taking steps to
   evacuate personnel as a tenuous cease-fire declared by South Sudan's
   rival leaders Monday continues to hold.
   A spokesman for opposition leader and Vice President Riek Machar says
   Machar and his troops have withdrawn from Juba "to avoid further
   confrontation."

   ''
   The spokesman, James Gatdek Dak, told the Reuters news agency that
   Machar is not returning to the bush or organizing for war. Dak also
   called for a "buffer force" to separate Machar's forces from those of
   President Salva Kiir.
   The head of U.N. peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, said Wednesday that
   36,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and that 7,000 have
   taken refuge on local U.N. bases.
   Addressing the U.N. Security Council, he said eight civilians were
   killed in the shelling of a U.N. protection-of-civilians site, and
   called on the council to consider an arms embargo on South Sudan.
   African Union summit
   The South Sudan situation is also high on the agenda of the African
   Union summit in Kigali, Rwanda this week.
   The chairperson of the African Union Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-
   Zuma, said Wednesday that the fighting in South Sudan "is totally
   unacceptable."

   ''
   "Governments and leadership are there to protect the vulnerable, to
   serve the people, not to be the cause of the people's suffering," she
   said.
   South Sudan erupted into conflict in December 2013, five months after
   Kiir fired Machar as his deputy. Fighting between supporters of the two
   men killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 2 million people.
   Under heavy international pressure, the rival leaders signed a peace
   deal last August and recently formed a transitional unity government
   that installed Machar as first vice president.

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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-us-sends-soldiers-to-prot
   ect-embassy/3416638.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/south-sudan-us-sends-soldiers-to-protect-embassy/3416638.html