by Denis Elamu
JUBA, July 4 (Xinhua) -- South Sudanese army (SPLA) on Tuesday blamed rebels for causing insecurity across the border with Uganda, which houses more than 1 million South Sudanese refugees.
SPLA spokesman Santo Domic Chol said in Juba following reports of some armed South Sudanese kidnapping refugees and looting cattle in refugee camps in Uganda's Moyo district.
"These are South Sudanese rebels. They look like SPLA and they are still wearing SPLA uniform with coat of arms of South Sudan and anybody can just come up and say I am from SPLA," he said.
He added that the SPLA-IO rebels are now not under unified command and instead scattered all over the country.
"If they are left not attended to they become even security threat to neighboring countries," Chol said.
These developments have heightened fears among refugees and alerted Ugandan security of the possibility of the war-torn country's violence spilling over across the border.
"The best thing is that the UPDF and SPLA intelligence will get together and try to prove this whether these people are from the SPLA or rebels," Chol added.
South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar led to fighting that pitied mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.
The 2015 peace agreement to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital forcing Machar to flee into exile.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of South Sudanese and displaced millions of others.
