East African leaders were to meet in Nairobi on Friday to discuss the escalating violence in South Sudan, said Hilde Johnson, Head of the UN mission to the troubled new country.
Leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development or IGAD were to meet a day after three-way talks in Juba between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
Those “constructive” discussions centred on the cessation of hostilities that have left hundreds dead since last week, Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Tedros Abodon told journalists on Thursday.
The leaders also discussed the humanitarian crisis caused by the violence and possibilities for a political dialogue with Kiir’s rival, former Vice-President Riek Machar, he said.
Ethiopia and Kenya are both founding members of IGAD, which includes Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan since the bloc’s founding in 1986, and South Sudan since that country’s independence in 2011.
It was not clear how many of the countries would be represented on Friday.