Norway said Wednesday it was temporarily closing its embassy in South Sudan for security reasons and urged its citizens to leave as clashes rage between forces allied to the nation’s rival leaders.
Fighting has been taking place for several weeks between federal forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and the “White Army” — a militia group accused by the government of collaborating with First Vice President Riek Machar.
The clashes have left their 2018 power-sharing agreement increasingly fragile and threaten to plunge the country back into civil war.
“The security situation in South Sudan has sharply deteriorated recently. This primarily affects the country’s civilian population, but also has implications for our staff’s security and freedom of movement,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.
“We have therefore decided to temporarily close our embassy in Juba until further notice,” he added.
In a separate statement published earlier, the Norwegian foreign ministry advised its nationals not to travel to South Sudan and urged those there to leave the country.
Norway’s embassy in Nairobi will handle diplomatic affairs for South Sudan until further notice.
South Sudan is the world’s youngest nation, having gained independence in 2011.
It soon fell into a five-year civil war between Kiir and Machar that killed some 400,000 people until the 2018 peace deal brought them into a unity government.
