South Sudan In Focus - VOA Africa

President Salva Kiir fires the governor of Wau State; the World Food Program implements a feeding program that benefits hundreds of students in Yei River County; and Sudanese activists in the United States gather outside the White House to protest the lifting of sanctions on Sudan.

Thirty aid workers evacuate the former Upper Nile State because of heavy fighting between government and armed opposition forces; flooding in Bor Town displaces hundreds of residents from their homes; and school children in a Torit orphanage plant trees to help make their environment safe.

Japan’s outgoing ambassador to South Sudan challenges South Sudanese leaders to restore peace and stability, and pave the way for economic development in the country; South Sudan’s government delays payment of its annual dues to the regional bloc; and a Sudanese school in Uganda offers education to South Sudanese children whose parents struggle to pay school tuition.

The World Bank makes a multi-million dollar donation to U.N. agencies working in South Sudan; boats overloaded with food worth millions of South Sudanese pounds capsize and sink on the river Nile; and infighting between rival groups in the SPLM-North results in the movement’s collapse.

A driver with the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed in former Western Equatoria state. The ICRC condemned the killing and says it suspended operations in the area indefinitely; and a former rebel General and four of his body guards were shot dead in Yambio Town of Gbudue state after fighting broke out between government forces and the rebel leader’s body guards.

Uganda’s minister for foreign affairs urges South Sudanese officials to give peace a chance and end the conflict which has forced one million South Sudanese to seek refuge in Uganda; Judges in South Sudan call off their four months long strike; and 27 percent of the population of South Sudan can read and write.

South Sudan says the United States should rethink its decision to impose sanctions on two senior government officials and the former army chief accused of obstructing peace in the country.

The sanctions were announced by the U.S Treasury Department yesterday against Information Minister Michael Makuei, defense official Malek Reuben, and former army chief General Paul Malong.

The leader of the National Democratic movement says President Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar are the main obstacles to peace in South Sudan; the former head of South Sudan’s army is banned from traveling to Kenya to identify his daughter who was killed in a boarding school fire; and a Sudanese cartoonist uses his sketch of an American football player to help shine a light on racism and police brutality in the United States.

The South Sudan army denies reports that a top army general was killed at a border post on the South Sudan/Uganda border; the daughter of a former top South Sudan army official is killed in a high school dormitory fire in Nairobi; and lawmakers call on authorities to remove heads of cattle that have invaded farm lands in Pageri, Magwi, and Nimule villages.

Members of South Sudan;s government question a mandate that protects civilians and humanitarian agencies; a former top SPLM official calls on President Salva Kiir to resign because of his failure to end the conflict in South Sudan; and residents in Bor call on state authorities to remove hundreds of stray dogs running through the streets of Bor Town.