South Sudanese refugees could surpass 1 million this year

JUBA, South Sudan — The number of South Sudanese refugees in East Africa could pass 1 million this year, the United Nations refugee agency said Friday, calling on armed groups to allow safe passage for people fleeing the latest fighting.

“We condemn all actions by the government to prevent civilians from boarding flights out of Juba or otherwise departing South Sudan,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters in Washington.

Opposing army factions clashed in Juba in the past week, with forces backing President Salva Kiir bombing the home of former rebel leader Riek Machar, now the country’s first vice president.

The fighting has threatened a peace deal reached in August to end the civil war between supporters of Kiir and Machar that left tens of thousands dead.

In South Sudan, the world’s newest country, not only have U.N. peacekeepers been unable to ward off what U.N. investigators call crimes against humanity committed chiefly, although not entirely, by government forces, but their own so-called protection-of-civilians sites have not always been reliable sanctuaries.