One of the few to have a mosquito net, a displaced family who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor by boat across the White Nile, sit under it after waking up in the morning in the town of Awerial, South Sudan Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The international Red Cross said Wednesday that the road from Bor to the nearby Awerial area "is lined with thousands of people" waiting for boats so they could cross the Nile River and that the gathering of displaced is "is the largest single identified concentration of displaced people in the country so far". (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
January 01, 2014 - 11:35 PM
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry says delegations from South Sudan's warring factions will meet for the first time Thursday for peace talks in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia is playing a leading role in trying to get the two sides to negotiate a peace deal. But those efforts have been overshadowed by continuing violence in parts of South Sudan, which has been hit by unrest since mid-December.
President Salva Kiir on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in Unity and Jonglei, two states where rebels loyal to former Vice-President Riek Machar control the capitals.
The fighting has exposed ethnic rivalry between the country's two largest ethnic groups, the Dinka of Kiir and the Nuer of Machar. The United Nations says there is mounting evidence that people were targeted for their ethnicity.
News from © The Associated Press, 2014