The conflict being fought is between supporters of the President of Southern Sudan Salva Kiir and the first vice-president of Rijeka Ma'shar. Kiir is a representative of a major ethnic group in South Sudan - the Dinka, and Ma'shar belongs to the ethnic Nuer.
The UN believes such killings are "deliberate and systematic", and its origin is "based on ethnicity."
The last escalation of the conflict began on Friday, July 8th.
Earlier, the US provoked Sudan's separation, resulting in an independent South Sudan. In this region there are deposits of oil, but it has no outlet to the sea, so the leadership of South Sudan is bound to cooperate with Sudan.
But the separation of the country has not led to the creation of a fully-fledged state, and in 2013 the country was once covered in conflicts based on ethnicity. While the US and the UN tried to intervene, it has not yet yielded any results.
