The United States has ordered all its non-emergency staff in South Sudan to leave, amid rising tensions in the country.

Fighting in recent days has threatened an already fragile peace deal between President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar.

The two leaders signed a peace agreement in 2018 to end a five-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, but their relationship has remained fraught.

On Sunday, the US State Department said that fighting was ongoing in South Sudan between various political and ethnic groups and that “weapons are readily available to the population”.

“Due to the risks in the country, on March 08, 2025, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees,” it said.

The UN human rights commission for South Sudan on Saturday warned of an “alarming regression” that threatened to undo years of progress towards peace.

President Kiir has called for calm and made an assurance that the country would not return to war.