Norway Closes Its Embassy in South Sudan for a While Because of Increasing Violence

The conflict in South Sudan has caused Norway to temporarily close its embassy there, moving its operations to Nairobi until further notice.

has declared that, in light of the deteriorating security situation in the nation, its embassy in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, will be temporarily closed. The decision came as fighting between government forces and an ethnic militia in Upper Nile state escalated, according to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After South Sudanese President Salva Kiir fired the Upper Nile governor, claiming the militia was siding with his political foe First Vice President Riek Machar, tensions escalated. Seven years after emerging from a bloody civil war that lost hundreds of thousands of lives, South Sudan, the youngest country in the world, is now at risk of relapsing into war.

The operations of the Norwegian embassy will be carried out from Nairobi, Kenya, until further notice. “When circumstances permit, the Juba mission will reopen,” the Norwegian foreign ministry said.