Big News Network.com Thursday 24th April, 2014
JUBA, South Sudan - An embattled South Sudan President, Salva Kiir, has sacked his army chief, reports said Thursday, a day after global outrage over the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the restive country, battling four-month tribal conflict.
The president has also replaced his head of intelligence.
Army spokesman Philip Aguer said General Paul Malong, a stalwart of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), is the country's new army chief who replaces General James Hoth Mai.
Intelligence chief Paul Mach was replaced by General Marial Nour Jok, Aguer said. Both men are Dinka.
President Kiir gave no reason reason for the sackings, first announced on national television Wednesday night.
The changing of the guard comes days after government troops were flushed out from a major oil hub by rebels loyal to Kiir's former deputy Riek Machar.
On Wednesday, the United Nation's top humanitarian official said "piles and piles" of bodies have been found in a mosque and a hospital in the provincial capital city of Bentiu of South Sudan.
The battle, which began in December last year, has mainly pitted Kiir's Dinka people against Machar's Nuer. Thousands have been killed and more than one million people have been forced to flee from their homes.
Reuters quoted an unnamed analyst saying that Malong, the new army chief, is a Kiir loyalist and a Dinka hardliner.
Mai was said to be the most prominent Nuer within the SPLA, a former guerrilla force that became the national army of the south after the end of the civil war with Sudan in 2005.
In a related development, the UN Security Council Thursday threatened sanctions against South Sudan as the world body expressed "horror" at the massacre of civilians.
The council issued a strongly worded statement to deplore the killings last week in Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state. It also condemned the use of radio broadcasts to "foment hate and sexual violence".
It said that council members "indicated their willingness to take additional measures", meaning sanctions, if attacks on civilians continue.
The statement also expressed "grave concern" over the more than 23,000 displaced people who are seeking shelter at the UN camp in Bentiu as the risk of a humanitarian crisis grows.
The US ambassador to the world body said she feared a deepening human catastrophe in South Sudan.
"The world's newest state is clearly on a precipice," said Ambassador Samantha Power. She demanded that the nation's leaders end the violence.
"Failure to take bold action now could push South Sudan into a cycle of retaliatory ethnic killing, a deepening civil war, and an even more devastating humanitarian catastrophe."
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