The United States is sending in the Marines again. Along with aircraft, Marines are being dispatched to the Horn of Africa in anticipation they may be needed to respond to the violence in South Sudan.
A senior U.S. Defense Department official says that 150 Marines are being moved from Moron, Spain to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti in case the State Department asks for their assistance in evacuating U.S. citizens left in South Sudan. So far, no such request has yet come to evacuate the roughly 100 U.S. citizens left in the country. The decision comes after four U.S. troops were injured Saturday when gunfire hit evacuation aircraft. Three of those troops are stable and being sent to the military hospital in Germany, a spokesman said, while the fourth continues to get treatment in Nairobi, in neighboring Kenya.
There are already a few dozen troops in South Sudan providing security. Others are in Djibouti, where the U.S. maintains its only permanent military base in Africa. There are also ten aircraft stationed there which include C-130 transport planes and Osprey, (pictured below), which are aircraft that can rotate their engines in such a manner that they can take of vertically just as a conventional helicopter can.
The United States is continuing intensive diplomatic efforts to calm the roiling ethnic violence, including holding a meeting between the U.S. special envoy for South Sudan, Donald Booth, and South Sudan President Salva Kiir.
Troops were deployed last week to help evacuate Americans and other foreign nationals and provided security at the U.S. Embassy in Juba. Toby Lanzer, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator, said Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians are also among 15,000 total people seeking protection at a U.N. base in Bor, a city that could see increasing violence in coming days. The death toll from a week of violence has likely surpassed 1,000 people though thee are no firm numbers available, he said. The number of internal refugees has likely surpassed 100,000 said Lanzer, who is seeking urgent financial assistance from the international community.
The violence began on December 15. South Sudan President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, said last week that an attempted military coup had triggered the violence and the blame was placed on former Vice President Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Other officials have since said a fight between Dinka and Nuer members of the presidential guard triggered the fighting which spiraled across the country. Fighting continued over the weekend as the central government acknowledged it has lost control of Bentiu, the capital Unity, a key oil-producing state. East African leaders are leading diplomatic efforts to avoid a full-blown civil war.
The White House issued a strongly worded statement to leaders of the warring factions over the weekend, after the president arrived in Hawaii for his holiday vacation. “Any effort to seize power through the use of military force will result in the end of longstanding support from the United States and the international community,” the statement said.
We ask all to offer a special prayer for all our troops who can not be home for Christmas, especially for those throughout the world who may be in harm’s way.
