The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and partners are providing urgent life-saving assistance to thousands of people displaced by last weekend's heavy fighting in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, UN officials said Thursday.

South Sudanese refugee children look through a window at the Nyumanzi transit centre in Adjumani on July 13, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]

The fighting broke out on July 7 between rival army factions in the capital of the world's youngest country, reportedly killing more than 270 people, including 33 civilians, and displaced at least 36,000 civilians.

"The people hit hardest by this fighting are struggling to cope in appalling conditions," said Mahimbo Mdoe, UNICEF's representative in South Sudan. "They are desperate for water, food and in need of medical assistance."

"We are responding and that response will continue to grow, but it is vital that we are able to reach everyone in need and for that we must have unrestricted humanitarian access," said Mdoe.

Fighting around Juba has subsided after five days of conflict between army factions, but aid workers attempting to help thousands of internally displaced people were hampered after discovering their warehouses looted, chief of the UN mission in the capital said on Wednesday.

"Shooting (Tuesday) was quite sporadic and (Wednesday) it has been even calmer," said Ellen Margrethe Loj, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative and head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told reporters here at UN headquarters during a teleconference.

For the first time since fighting erupted a week ago, aid workers emerged from their shelters.

Also on Wednesday, the UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Herve Ladsous, told the UN Security Council that the fighting between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing First Vice-President Riek Machar made the movement of UNMISS difficult although the Mission was able to conduct limited patrolling.

Teams from UNICEF and partners are also working to assess the extent of humanitarian needs and have begun family tracing for children who became separated from their parents as families fled the fighting. Plans are in place to assist up to 50,000 people affected by the conflict.

South Sudan, which won independence from Sudan in July 2011, plunged into conflict again in December 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup, which the latter denied, leading to a cycle of retaliatory killings.

President Kiir and former rebel leader and now First Vice President Machar signed a peace deal in August that paved way for the formation of the transitional unity government to end more than two years of civil conflict.

Related

• UN agencies relocate non-essential staff from South Sudan
• Kenya Airways resumes flights to South Sudan

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