DHAKA: African leaders arrived in South Sudan on Thursday to try to mediate between the country’s president and the political rivals he accuses of attempting a coup that the government insists sparked violence threatening to destroy the world’s newest country.

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn were to meet with South Sudanese president Salva Kiir on Thursday, said information minister Michael Makuei Lueth, reports gulfnews.com.

World leaders have urged the country’s leaders to stop the violence in which thousands are feared killed.

The United States, Norway and Ethiopia are leading efforts to open peace talks between Kiir and his political rivals. Kiir said in a Christmas address that he is willing to ‘dialogue’ with all his opponents.

The United Nations is investigating reports of mass killings since violence began spreading across South Sudan after a fight among the presidential guards on December 15, pitting soldiers from Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group against those from the Nuer ethnic group of former vice-president Riek Machar.

South Sudan’s top UN humanitarian official, Toby Lanzer, said on Monday that he believes the death toll has surpassed 1,000.

Leuth, the information minister, said the government has not yet established formal contact with Machar, who has been accused of leading what the government insists was a failed coup plot. Machar, he said, was expected to first renounce rebellion.

‘For us, we are not talking with him,’ Leuth said, referring to Machar, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

BDST: 2038 HRS, DEC 26, 2013
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor