A cease-fire in South Sudan’s capital appeared to hold for a second straight day Wednesday after intense fighting that killed hundreds of people and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
No gunfire or artillery was heard in Juba and evacuation flights for foreign nationals were able to leave the international airport, although commercial flights were yet to resume.
“No gunshots today. I have seen no tank, no helicopter,” said a city resident who did not want to be named. “There are a lot of soldiers and policemen in the streets patrolling.”
More people emerged but many remain cautious after four days of heavy fighting that began in earnest on Friday evening, took a pause on Saturday — the young country’s fifth independence anniversary — and resumed Sunday and Monday.
The death toll from Sunday’s and Monday’s battles is not yet known but around 300 were killed in just a few hours on Friday.
Adama Dieng, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said some civilians “were reportedly targeted based on their ethnicity.”
African Union Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called the situation in South Sudan “totally unacceptable.”
The United Nations said around 36,000 people had fled their homes for the perceived safety of UN bases, churches and aid agency compounds.
Two Chinese UN peacekeepers were killed and others wounded.
The fighting was heaviest in an area called Jebel to the west of the city where ex-rebels had a military base close to a UN camp for people previously uprooted in the civil war.

Source: Arab News