Church leaders say they are maintaining their neutrality in the current conflict.

They will not condemn any of the parties to the conflict but want the two principals to stop the war.

Paulino Lukudu Loro, Catholic Archbishop of Juba, spoke at a meeting of civil society groups in Juba yesterday.

“Who do you condemn? Riek or Salva? It is not easy for the church. So I am saying there is a difficulty for us today as a church even if we are to talk, for sure we are going to talk, but it is not going to be the same kind of language we should use as we were talking with the north,” he said.

For his part, the chairman of the South Sudan Council of Churches, Reverend Peter Gai Lual, says church leaders would like to fully intervene in the peace talks.

“We need to talk to the people concerned. The people I mean are the principals, the big men, the big men and those who are around them—the generals in the army and on other side.”