Warring parties in South Sudan delayed direct peace talks on Saturday dashing hopes of a swift ceasefire to end raging fighting and the risk of a slide into all-out civil war.
While top leaders of the Government and rebel teams have briefly met directly, the rivals continued to hold separate talks with negotiators. No timeline has been set for the crucial face-to-face talks to begin, despite the teams having already spent three days in the same hotel in neighbouring Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
Thousands of people are feared to have been killed in the fighting since it erupted on December 15, pitting Army units loyal to President Salva Kiir against a loose alliance of ethnic militia forces and mutinous Army commanders nominally headed by his rival, former vice-president Riek Machar.