South Sudan turmoil continues

As the world’s youngest nation prepares to mark its fourth year of independence from Sudan on Thursday, South Sudan finds itself in the ignominious position of being “lower in terms of human development than just about every other place on earth,” according to a UN report documenting the ravages of the war.
Analysts warn the only obvious diplomatic leverage left to pressure the warring parties into making peace – sanctions – could actually worsen the conflict.
The war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings across the country that has split the impoverished landlocked nation along ethnic lines.
Kiir and Machar have accepted “collective responsibility for the crisis”, but the 18-month-old war, in which tens of thousands have been killed, rumbles on with no end in sight.