Earlier this month, armed clashes between competing factions of South Sudan’s government broke out in the capital Juba, a day after the nation’s fifth anniversary of its independence. The conflict dates back to political events and factional fighting that first emerged in 2013.

In July 2013, problems over power sharing and disagreements within the ruling Southern People’s Liberation Movement party led President Salva Kiir to sack his Vice-President Riek Machar and other members of the cabinet. Tensions further escalated in December, when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup. What started as a primarily political dispute soon degenerated into a bloody civil war. Machar fled the capital and became the leader of a formal rebellion in December 2013.

President Kiir and Vice-President Machar have spent much of the last two and a half years leading opposing factions, largely along ethnic lines, in a civil war that has torn South Sudan apart. Machar returned to Juba earlier this year in April to join the government under a peace agreement. The violence that erupted this month however, reveals the extreme fragility of the peace accord.

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