This blogpost is part one of a two-part blog series on the ongoing tensions in Abyei. The blogposts were authored by a guest blogger whose name has been withheld for security reasons.

A heavy fighting between South Sudan’s warring factions has erupted in Upper Nile’s historic city, Maiwut, forcing civilians to flee their homes, both rebel and government military officials have told the South Sudan News Agency Thursday.

South Sudan president Salva Kiir on Thursday urged the army’s general command and its leadership to unite against tribalism in the country.

Civil society activists say a move to exclude South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar from a regional peace process will ensure that South Sudan remains engulfed in war.

700 teddy bears have been placed on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral in London by international aid agency World Vision UK to represent the 700 children per week that flee conflict in South Sudan by crossing the border into Uganda.

Experts laid out a series of steps they said the U.S. government could take to help end the conflict in South Sudan at a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing Wednesday. Swift U.S. action was vital, they testified.

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia is set to open a new camp for South Sudanese refugees in a bid to cope with rising number of people running from a brutal civil war.

Uganda, the country with the world’s fastest growing refugee burden, is failing to secure the help it needs to care for those forced across the border from South Sudan by war and hunger.

The number of South Sudanese refugees fleeing to neighboring Uganda has reduced despite continued fighting back home, a new report by the UN Refugee Agency has said.