South Sudan's Office of the President said today that the expulsion of thousands of Bul Nuer residents from the Protection of Civilians (POC) sites in Juba following clashes with members from other Nuer sections proves that the UN is unable to protect the civilians living at these sites.

The president's spokesman says the government is capable of protecting its own citizens and does not need United Nations peacekeepers.

Many of the Nuers living at the POC sites claim to have fled massacres and other forms of violence carried out by government troops targeting them by ethnicity. They have been living for more than a year under UN protection. The government says that people of any ethnicity are now safely able to move about in Juba, pointing out that some Nuers even remain in government positions.

Presidential Press Secretary Ateny Wek told journalists in Juba that President Salva Kiir has been briefed about recent brawls within the UN protection sites which forced out thousands of people.

Ateny said, “On the 8th and on the 9th and on the 10th there has been fighting taking place among the IDPs... which displaced about 6000 IDPs, which now in actual fact have now been pushed away from what the United Nations calls the protection camps. So the 6000 have no protection from what we have seen, it has been proven that they have lost protection from the United Nations.”

The UN Mission in South Sudan stated that the number of IDPs who left the protection site was only 3500 and that they left voluntarily.

Kiir's spokesman continued, “The next step of the government is to tell the intermational community that if these people [the UN] are no longer protecting anybody they should stop the project of saying they want to set up camps which in actual fact will provide second class citizenship in the country. We are capable as the government to protect our citizens.”

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3500 flee UN protection site in Juba after days of fighting