ICRC sends rapid-response team to S. Sudan

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JUBA, South Sudan, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said it dispatched a rapid-response team to South Sudan to help people displaced by renewed conflict.

The ICRC said it sent a quick-reaction team to remote villages in South Sudan's Jonglei state to address the needs of those affected by early February conflict.

"No matter what side they're on, the wounded have the right to receive medical attention," Cleto Chashi, an ICRC representative to South Sudan, said in a statement.

A report last year from the United Nations said violence between ethnic groups in Jonglei led to deaths, abductions of women and children, destruction of homes and the displacement of thousands of people.

The report described a "cycle of violence" near South Sudan's border with Ethiopia.

In January, U.N. spokesman Eduardo del Buey said the U.N. Mission in South Sudan confirmed that armed gangs clashed with the Sudan People's Liberation Army in the town of Pibor in Jonglei state. UNMISS was providing shelter for more than 2,000 people who fled the violence.

South Sudan became an independent county in 2011 as part of a peace deal that brought an end to Sudan's civil war. Disputes over natural resources, ethnic clashes and border issues have threatened the fragile peace.