Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) — The government and rebels in South Sudan signed a cease-fire to end five weeks of fighting that

killed as many as 10,000 people and was described by a senior United Nations official as “a horror.”
The warring parties agreed to halt fighting within 24 hours, in an accord signed yesterday by the head of South
Sudan’s negotiating team, Nhial Deng Nhial, and rebel-delegation leader Taban Deng Gai in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The
signing was witnessed by officials including Seyoum Mesfin, head of an East African mediation team, and Chinese Ambassador to the
African Union Xie Xiaoyan.
The signing is a “significant step forward,” Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom said at the ceremony. “The two
sides need to advance the implementation of these agreements through dialogue and reconciliation, and walk their talk for the
sake of their people,”     Violence erupted in the world’s newest nation on Dec. 15 after President Salva Kiir accused former Vice President Riek Machar, whom he fired in July, of trying to stage a coup, acharge Machar denies. The dispute escalated into clashes between members of Kiir’s ethnic Dinka community and Machar’s Nuer group.
The death toll from the fighting is approaching 10,000,according to the International Crisis Group, while the UN says
half a million people have been forced to flee their homes,almost 84,000 of them to neighboring countries.

Two Agreements

Rebels said fighting continued today as they clashed with government forces in Unity state, hours before the cease-fire is
due to come into effect. Insurgents active in Sudan’s Darfur region are fighting alongside Kiir’s troops, rebel spokesman
Brigadier-General Lul Ruai Koang said in an e-mailed statement.
South Sudanese army spokesman Philip Aguer said he had no reports of fighting in the area today. He denied any alliance
with Darfur rebels in a phone interview from South Sudan’s capital, Juba.
The delegations signed two agreements, one covering the cessation of hostilities, and the other on the issue of 11
detainees who have been held without charge since the fighting started. The rebels had previously demanded that the arrested
politicians be freed before they signed the cease-fire.
Mediators will now work to have the detainees released to participate in the next phase of talks that start Feb. 7, Gai
said in an interview.
“If the government is committed to peace they have to release these comrades immediately, else we are not going to
participate in the next coming process unless with the participation of these leaders,” he said.

‘Progressively Withdraw’

The government will release the detainees “according to the laws of South Sudan,” though they will “not necessarily”
be present for the next stage of talks, Information Minister Michael Makuei said in an interview.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the seven-nation group that helped mediate the agreement, will lead an
unarmed, Juba-based monitoring and verification team that will oversee the cease-fire, according to the accord.
The agreements make no specific reference to the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from South Sudan, one of the key rebel demands before yesterday’s signing. The two sides agreed that “all forces should withdraw from theaters of operation, where there
is physical fighting,” Makuei said.
Both sides are to “redeploy and/or progressively withdraw” and allied forces from the “theater of operations,”
according to the agreement.
Uganda’s military says it has about 1,600 soldiers in South Sudan. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the forces were
deployed to support South Sudanese government troops.

‘A Horror’

The rebels expect Ugandan troops to now play a “non- combatant” role in South Sudan, opposition spokesman Mabior
Garang said in an interview.
Companies including China National Petroleum Corp. and India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. have evacuated employees from
South Sudan because of the violence. The country, which gained independence in July 2011, has sub-Saharan Africa’s largest oil
reserves after Nigeria and Angola, according to BP Plc data.
During a four-day visit to South Sudan last week, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic said
he received reports of mass killings, sexual violence and the use of children in conflict. The worst affected areas were
around Juba, Bor, and Bentiu, capital of oil-rich Unity state.
“What I saw was a horror. Destruction and death is everywhere in Bentiu, which has now become a ghost town,” he
said in a statement. “I myself saw some 15 bodies lying on a road. The extent of the looting, burning and destruction is hard
to grasp for anybody who hasn’t been there.”