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S Sudan Army Captures Militant-Held Town, Senior Militant Defects

S Sudan Army Captures Militant-Held Town, Senior Militant Defects
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Local Editor

South Sudan's government said Friday it had taken the last town before the main militant base of Pagak, where thousands of civilians had fled to escape fighting near the border with Ethiopia.

S Sudan Army Captures Militant-Held Town, Senior Militant Defects

Mai-wut had been under militant control since the war began in late 2013 and is a gateway to the main militant stronghold of Pagak. Losing Pagak would weaken the rebellion led by former Vice President Riek Machar.

In a separate blow to Machar, a senior commander allied to the militant leader's SPLM-IO group said Friday he had left to join up with a separate militant faction, led by General Thomas Cirillo, the most senior officer to defect from President Salva Kiir's army in the last year.

Mai-wut sits along a supply route from Ethiopia to Mathiang - a town adjacent to the Paloch oilfields, the main source of government revenue.

Dickson Gatluak Jock, a spokesman for the forces of South Sudan's First Vice President Taban Deng Gai, who were involved in the fighting, said three government soldiers were killed and five others wounded in capturing Mai-wut.

Jock said they entered the town Thursday morning after clashing with rebel forces. "It is under our control. Our forces managed to reach the town around 10 a.m.," he said.

Up to 7,000 families had fled to Pagak to escape the fighting since the government launched its offensive earlier this month, said Sarah Nyanath, head of GESSO, a local aid group in the town.

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired Machar as his deputy, unleashing a conflict that has spawned armed factions often following ethnic lines.

Last July, Deng Gai, a former chief opposition negotiator, broke ranks with Machar and joined Kiir with troops allied to him.

Jock said Friday that Deng Gai's forces at Mai-wut were backed by army troops from Paloch and were forced to attack the rebels after they hit government positions near Mai-wut. A spokesman for the SPLM-IO militants confirmed the town was no longer under their control.

Machar was further weakened when John Kenyi Loburon, the commander of his forces in South Sudan's Central Equatoria state, which has seen some of the worst fighting, defected to General Cirillo's National Salvation Front militant group.

He said in a statement that he left because the movement had splintered between Machar and Deng Gai and because Loburon's troops had been sidelined by the top leadership.

Cirillo, who lives in Ethiopia, says his aim is to overthrow Kiir, accusing him of running a tribalist army and government. The fighting in South Sudan has forced millions to flee their homes, split much of the population along ethnic lines, paralyzed agriculture and cut oil production.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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