JUBA: Rebels in South Sudan killed four soldiers when they attacked a strategic northeastern town to try to push the government out ahead of a resumption of peace talks, a government spokesman said on Monday.
The soldiers came under heavy fire on Sunday in Waat town and 14 were also wounded, said Dickson Gatluak Jock, spokesman for Vice President Taban Deng Gai. The town in Eastern Bieh state is on a transit route used by rebels.
“Their (the rebels) main aim ... is to regain full control of the strategic town of Waat from our forces before the revitalization process kicks off in Addis Ababa,” he told Reuters, adding that the situation remained tense.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long civil war. Fresh conflict broke out in late 2013 in which troops loyal to President Salva Kiir fought soldiers loyal to Riek Machar, the vice president he sacked.
The fighting divided the country along ethnic lines. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly 4 million people have fled their homes.
Regional body, IGAD, said it would start consultations in the Ethiopian capital in October with members of the transitional government of national unity including Machar and General Thomas Cirilo.
Rebels are still trying to oust the government from Waat to allow people to return to their homes there, said Lam Paul Gabriel, a spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army In Opposition, the main rebel force.
“Our aim is to push them out of Waat, to make sure our civilians come back and the revitalization forum will find the civilians at home,” he said. It was too early to determine casualties among their own forces as fighting continued, he said.
Four South Sudanese soldiers killed in fighting with rebels
Four South Sudanese soldiers killed in fighting with rebels
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
