JUBA, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan government forces have taken control of a strategic rebel stronghold and headquarters of the rebel group (SPLA-IO) near the Ethiopian border, a military spokesman for the SPLA-IO under South Sudan's first vice President Taban Deng Gai said late Monday.
Dickson Gatluak said government-backed forces overran Pagak town Monday morning after rebels loyal to South Sudan's former deputy President Riek Machar retreated from the town.
"Our forces this morning entered Pagak to secure the town after the rebels retreated to the Southern parts. We went there to rescue the civilians and also secure the border with Ethiopia," Gatluak told Xinhua by phone.
Last month, government troops launched a major offensive to retake the rebel-controlled areas of Maiwut and Pagak.
The UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) last month said the offensive displaced over 20,000 civilians into neighboring Ethiopia, expressing concerns about their plight.
Lul Ruai Koang, a spokesman for the government army (SPLA), declined to comment on the latest development.
South Sudan has been embroiled in more than three years of conflict that has taken a devastating toll on the people of South Sudan.
A peace pact signed in Addis Ababa in 2015 under intense international pressure was shattered again following renewed violence between rival government and opposition troops in the capital Juba in July 2016.
The conflict has since spread to other regions which enjoyed relative peace, causing mass displacement of at least 3.5 million people from their homes, ethnic polarization and tribal violence that has killed tens of thousands of people.
