~~ Crisis in South Sudan ~~

**YouthFul** · 11-01-2014, 06:57 PM

Political disputes last month created a volatile situation in the young nation of South Sudan. Violence has spread killing more than 1,000 and has driven hundreds of thousand from their homes. Talks continue and UN peacekeepers were mobilized to try to stop the crisis from escalating further.
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Women and children carry water in a water point, in Minkammen, 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Bor, on Jan. 8, due to lack of water available for the thousands who have fled to Awerial region, leaving many to collect water from the Nile River.

South Sudanese men shelter under disused mobile staircases as young children play on top at an makeshift IDP camp at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) compound in Juba Dec. 22. World leaders have stepped up calls for South Sudan's feuding politicians to end fighting that has pushed the country to the brink of civil war, after four US servicemen were wounded when their aircraft came under fire. United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon called Sunday for an immediate end to violence in South Sudan, where the death toll is mounting from fighting between rival forces loyal to the president and his sacked deputy.

SPLA soldiers jump from a vehicle in Juba Dec. 21. African mediators sought on Saturday to meet rivals to South Sudan's president in a bid to end fighting that threatens to drag the world's newest country into an ethnic civil war.

An internally displaced man holds his son inside a United Nations Missions in Sudan (UNMIS) compound in Juba Dec. 19. South Sudanese government troops battled to regain control of a flashpoint town and sent forces to quell fighting in a vital oil producing area on Thursday, the fifth day of a conflict that that has deepended ethnic divisions in the two-year-old nation.

Residents of Juba arrive at the UN compound on Dec. 20 where they sought shelter. African diplomats made a push for peace in South Sudan as bitter fighting spread across the world's youngest nation, with US President Barack Obama warning the oil-rich state was on the brink of civil war.

A girl sleeps as people go about their daily life in Minkammen, 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Bor, on Jan. 8. An AFP reporter reached the town and said the area was flooded with fleeing civilians and that the rumble of heavy artillery fire could be heard in the distance. Some 80,000 displaced people from South Sudan's volatile Bor region have fled to safety in sprawling, dusty camps in Awerial region across the Nile River.

Displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a stream inside a United Nations compound which has become home to thousands of people displaced by the recent fighting, in Juba, South Sudan, Dec. 27.

Displaced people arrive with what belongings they had time to gather by river barge from Bor, some of the thousands who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor by boat across the White Nile, in the town of Awerial, South Sudan.

Three children walk through a spontaneous camp for internally displaced persons at the United Nations Mission to South Sudan (UNMISS) base in Juba, on Jan. 9. Over 17,000 people are living at the base, with new arrivals every day, due to ongoing conflict in the world's youngest nation.

A South Sudanese girl puts her family's laundry out to dry on a barbed fence at a makeshift IDP camp at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) compound in Juba, Dec. 22.

South Sudanese women jostle to get at the head of a queue for water being distributed from a UN reservoir at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) compound where tension remains high fueling an exodus of both local and foreign residents from the south Sudanese capital.

Displaced people who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor, South Sudan prepare to sleep in the open at night in the town of Awerial, South Sudan on Jan. 1. The International Red Cross said that the road from Bor to the nearby Awerial area "is lined with thousands of people" waiting for boats so they could cross the Nile River.