Tensions are spiraling in South Sudan amid escalating militia violence in the Upper Nile state in the east of the country, cabinet reshuffles and the arrests of several senior officials in the capital, Juba.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar are at the center of the renewed insecurity.

In recent weeks, they've been embroiled in political disagreements that have led to deadly clashes.

The rivals are party to a shaky 2018 peace deal that ended a five-year civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and Machar in which nearly 400,000 people were killed.

Kiir dismissed several key government officials in February as part of a cabinet reshuffle, some of whom "were viewed by Riek Machar as violating the 2018 peace agreement," explained Daniel Akech, a South Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental conflict prevention organization.

"And in western Bahr al-Ghazal, there were some violence outbreaks in protest to these changes that the president made without consulting the vice president," Akech added, referring to a region in the northwest of the country.

According to Akech, Kiir's order for the redeployment of forces in some areas triggered the violence in regions such as Nasir in Upper Nile, where a United Nations helicopter attempting to rescue soldiers from the area was attacked and a UN crew member and South Sudanese general killed.

The UN-affiliated Radio Miraya reported that the so-called White Army, a loose band of armed youths from the same ethnic Nuer community as Machar, was suspected of involvement in the aircraft attack.

The embassies of France, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway, along with other Western embassies, condemned the attack on the UN helicopter.

The US Embassy in South Sudan has since ordered the departure of non-emergency US........

© Deutsche Welle