More than 150 expatriates wanting to leave country, says Foreign Office, as aircraft is sent to the capital, Juba

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

The British government is sending a plane to South Sudan to evacuate UK nationals as the situation in the country worsens.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the plane would arrive on Thursday to carry "any British nationals wishing to leave".

The US and UK had already withdrawn non-essential embassy staff. The Foreign Office said on Wednesday that its mission in the capital, Juba, remained open but that it had decided to temporarily withdraw some embassy staff and their dependents, while advising against all travel to Juba. The status of the embassy was being revised on a constant basis, the FCO said.

The FCO said more than 150 Britons had been in contact wanting to leave the country. A spokeswoman said: "A UK aircraft is en route to Juba to evacuate British nationals who wish to leave from Juba airport on Thursday 19 December.

"If you are a British national and you wish to leave Juba you should contact the FCO as soon as possible."

"To date over 150 British nationals have contacted us, many of whom want help leaving the country."

Not all of those being evacuated were embassy staff, she said.

"If you are a British national and you wish to leave Juba you should contact the FCO as soon as possible on +44 207 008 1500 or by email at crisis@fco.gsi.gov.uk," an official press release said.

Three days of clashes between rival groups of soldiers have triggered warnings of a slide into civil war. President Salva Kiir has sacked his vice-president, Riek Machar – the man he accuses of starting the fighting, which diplomats say has killed up to 500 people – and plotting a coup.

The United Nations said tensions was still spreading across South Sudan's remote states as the violence, which first erupted in the capital, Juba, late on Sunday, moved north to Bor, the site of an ethnic massacre in 1991.

Witnesses and officials said fighting had broken out in two barracks in Bor between troops loyal to Kiir, from South Sudan's Dinka ethnic group, and Machar, a Nuer, though the reports were sketchy.

"We [are] not in control of Bor town," South Sudan's army spokesman Philip Aguer told Reuters, without going into further details.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, warned on Wednesday of the danger of the violence spreading. "This is a political crisis and urgently needs to be dealt with through political dialogue," Ban told reporters.

"There is a risk of this violence spreading to other states [in South Sudan] as we have already seen some signs of this."

In his first interview since going into hiding, Machar told the Guardian a rebellion against his ex-boss had begun in the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA) and was spreading across the new nation.

"There is a rebellion against Salva Kiir in the SPLA," he said. "The SPLA are fed up with Salva Kiir and want him out."

He denied trying to seize power illegally and said he and his supporters remained loyal to the ruling party and were now the real leaders of the country: "We are democrats, we cannot fight against the state we created, the state we liberated."

South Sudan, which declared independence from Sudan in 2011, remains one of Africa's least developed countries for all its oil reserves, which supply almost all its government revenues and hard currency. Fighting has so far appeared to stay away from the oil fields.

A broader conflict could threaten aid and be exploited by neighbouring Sudan, which has had persistent rows with Juba over their undefined borders, oil and security. That would further hurt efforts to build a functioning state in the south.