A former director of research at South Sudan's ministry of defense said Wednesday there is a new rebel group in the conflict-weary country.
Major Lasuba Lodoru Wongo told South Sudan in Focus from an undisclosed location that the new group is made up of more than 200 soldiers who left the army because they were disappointed with how President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar are handling peace talks for South Sudan.
Lodoru said the new group goes by the name the National Revolutionary Movement for the Salvation of South Sudan. He said his group is independent of other rebel groups, including the one allied to former vice president Machar.
According to Lodoru, a unit of the new rebel group was attacked by government forces in Maridi County, in Western Equatoria state, late Tuesday. Civilians in Maridi said two people were killed in clashes on Tuesday night but insisted that the fighting was between cattle keepers and rustlers, not renegade soldiers and the SPLA.
South Sudan in Focus has been unable to reach the Maridi County commissioner for details about the fighting.