Disgruntled soldiers and politicians led by a former vice-president attempted to overthrow the South Sudanese government,a top government official said Monday,as sporadic fighting continued between factions of the military in the latest violence to hit the worlds youngest nation. Some troops within the main army base raided the weapons store in the capital but were repulsed,South Sudanese Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told The Associated Press Monday. The military insisted the situation in Juba was tense but unlikely to get worse. Some politicians had been arrested,he said,but could not confirm if former Vice President Riek Machar -who he said led the attempted coup - was among those in detention. President Salva Kiir had ordered a dawn-to-dusk curfew,he said. Explosions and sporadic gunfire rang out early Monday in Juba amid repeated clashes between factions of the military,according to Col Philip Aguer,the South Sudan military spokesman,who insisted later Monday that the army was now in full control of Juba. An Associated Press reporter saw heavily armed soldiers patrolling the streets of Juba Monday amid the gunfire emerging from Jubas main army barracks. The streets were largely empty of civilians,with most Juba residents staying indoors. EgyptAir reported that it had cancelled its flight to Juba on Monday,saying the airport there was closed. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan on Monday reported the sound of mortar and heavy machine-gun fire,saying hundreds of civilians had sought refuge inside UN facilities. Tension had been mounting in the worlds youngest nation since Kiir fired Machar as his deputy in July. Machar,who has expressed a willingness to contest the presidency in 2015,said after he was fired that if the country is to be united it cannot tolerate a one mans rule or it cannot tolerate dictatorship. His ouster,part of a wider dismissal of the entire Cabinet by Kiir,had followed reports of a power struggle within the ruling party. At the time,the United States and the European Union urged calm amid fears the dismissals could spark political upheaval in the country. While Kiir is leader of the ruling SPLM party,many of the dismissed ministers,including Machar,were key figures in the rebel movement that fought a decades-long war against Sudan that led to South Sudans independence in 2011. The local Sudan Tribune newspaper reported on its website that military clashes erupted late Sunday between members of the presidential guard in fighting that seemed to pit soldiers from Kiirs Dinka tribe against those from the Nuer tribe of Machar. In a message to American citizens Monday,the US Embassy in Juba said it had received reports from multiple reliable sources of ongoing security incidents and sporadic gunfire in multiple locations across Juba.
