South Sudan

South Sudan rebels opened fire on a UN peacekeeping base sheltering 30,000 civilians, killing one and wounding six in a possible war crime, the UN said late July 1.

The UN strongly criticized Southern Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit on obstructing the Organization’s attempts to protect innocent civilians, after he failed to give his permission to UN helicopters and drones. Mayardit has also stated that any UN member arrested while taking pictures will be considered a spy.

Gunmen in South Sudan have raped girls, seized boys to become soldiers and torched towns in some of the heaviest fighting seen in the 17-month-long civil war, the United Nations said May 12. 
 

The UN children's agency said on March 1 it fears hundreds of boys were kidnapped last month in the northeast of South Sudan, raising suspicions that the abductors were from a pro-government militia.
      

South Sudan President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar on late Feb. 1 signed a new agreement to end more than 13 months of fighting in a civil war that has left tens of thousands dead.
 

Six Bulgarian U.N. aid workers who were detained by rebels in Sudan's strife-torn South Kordofan region have been released, the Bulgarian foreign ministry said on Jan. 31.

"They are in good health and are in a safe place with a team of the United Nations (World) Food Program," foreign ministry spokeswoman Betina Zhoteva said. 

It is expected that the six Bulgarian citizens that had been captured by insurgents in Sudan should be released on Thursday or Friday at the latest.

This was announced by Georgi Spasov, the chairman of the board of directors of Heli Air, the airline company of which the captured Bulgarians are employees, in an interview for private NOVA TV station on Thursday.

Six Bulgarian citizens were captured by members of the ''Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North" (SPLM-North) on Monday.

The incident happened when a helicopter owned by a Bulgarian airline company had to make an emergency landing at the city of Kadugli.

South Sudan's civil war entered its ninth month Friday with rebels and government troops engaged in heavy battles, both sides said, days after UN warnings of sanctions over the conflict.
      

The European Union said it slapped a travel ban and asset freeze Thursday on two South Sudanese military leaders for committing atrocities and obstructing the peace.