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Press TV has conducted an interview with Stefan Simanowitz, political analyst, London about growing violence in South Sudan after an attempted coup failed against the government. 

- We have at least four American soldiers getting wounded based on the latest reports. Is this a sign that since this has been only France being engaged that perhaps the US is now going to get engaged in this fierce conflict that is happening there in South Sudan?

- It’s a very confused situation. I don’t think that’s an indication at the moment. I think the indication is that the Americans are trying to help with the evacuation of their nationals - Lots of aid workers, people working for NGOs, diplomats are in the country and are being evacuated.

And it’s not just the Americans doing that – the British, the Dutch, the French are all trying to evacuate their nationals.

As we’ve seen the situation is very fragile. Two Indian UN peacekeepers were killed yesterday as large numbers of 2,000 surrounded the UN compound there where thousands and thousands of south Sudanese people were sheltering. So the situation is very tense.

I think one of the things President Obama is talking about the country being on a precipice. It could very easily slide into civil war and have ethnically divided clashes.

The Americans – the figure I read was that they were sending 45 troops out there to try and evacuate their nationals. So I don’t think we’re talking about any kind of escalation of intervention of military forces. It’s a very dangerous and volatile situation and I think the Americans, the French, the British – any country is very concerned about removing their nationals rather than trying to get involved in the conflict.

Having said that, as you’ve said the Kenyans, the Ethiopians – the regional forces - are also very keen to try and avoid any clashes, any descent into any ethnic war, ethnically divided clashes, which we’ve seen in the past going back to 1991 the Bor massacre there where many were massacred.

So it’s a very fragile situation and one of the world’s newest states as well we must remember South Sudan only came into being just over two years ago, among great jubilation.

Obviously it’s a very oil-rich country so a lot of those tensions are exacerbated by the desire for natural resources and the wealth that those bring. The situation isn’t very clear at the moment and it’s not a good one.