At least 50,000 people have been displaced in South Sudan since February as forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar have clashed in the northwest, a UN agency said Tuesday.

Tensions have been mounting in Nasir County, Upper Nile State, between forces allied to Kiir and Machar, threatening to undermine a fragile peace-sharing agreement.

“The violence is putting already vulnerable communities at greater risk and forcing the suspension of life-saving services,” Anita Kiki Gbeho, an official with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in South Sudan said in a statement.

On Monday, an air strike by the South Sudanese government in Nasir County killed at least 20 people, including children, area commissioner James Gatluak told AFP.

OCHA said 10,000 of the displaced had crossed into Ethiopia.

It added that 23 humanitarian workers had also been forced to leave the region and a cholera treatment unit in Nasir closed.

“I urge all actors to allow humanitarians to safely reach those in need, especially women, children and the elderly,” Gbeho said in the statement.

Last week, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported 1,300 cholera cases in South Sudan’s Akobo County, located in the Upper Nile region.

The fighting threatens a 2018 peace deal between Kiir and Machar, who fought a five-year civil war that killed some 400,000 people.

Kiir’s allies have accused Machar’s forces of fomenting unrest in Nasir County in league with the White Army, a loose band of armed youths from the vice-president’s Nuer ethnic community.

Tensions spiked earlier this month when an estimated 6,000 White Army combatants overran a military encampment in Nasir.

An attempted rescue by the United Nations led to the deaths of a UN helicopter pilot and senior South Sudanese general, among others.

AFP