News that the South Sudanese government has provisionally agreed to a ceasefire was welcomed by East African nations trying to broker an end to fighting, but came with demands for the rebels to immediately back down, which seems unlikely.
Former Vice President Riek Machar, accused of leading the rebellion, says the conditions of any ceasefire aren’t in place, and called for opposition politicians to be freed from military custody. They were arrested on charges of plotting a coup.
What started as an unsuccessful coup hasn’t stayed that way for long, however, and the bloodletting along ethnic lines continues to grow, with many warning the nation is approaching a state of full-scale civil war.
As with other civil wars, there is also concern that the fighting could spill across borders quickly, particularly with Central African Republic, Uganda and Congo not particularly stable themselves.