A group of 100 unarmed South Sudanese refugees have taken 13 United Nations mission staff hostage in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, demanding to be moved to another country, a UN official said on Tuesday.
The official said UN officials were negotiating to try to win the release of the employees from the MONUSCO mission in DR Congo, The Daily Star reports.
Most of the hostage-takers are former fighters loyal to former vice-president Riek Machar.
Civil war broke out in oil-producing South Sudan in 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked Riek Machar from the vice-presidency. The conflict ended with a peace pact in 2015 and Machar was reinstated early last year but tensions between the two lingered and new fighting began in July.
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