By REUTERS

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South Sudan’s civil war has mutated from a two-way fight between the president Salva Kiir and his ousted former deputy Vice President Riek Machar to a fragmented conflict, making it harder to put it back together and peace more elusive, the top U.N. peacekeeper in the country said.

David Shearer, head of the 13,000-strong United Nations mission, welcomed signs that regional leaders were reviving the peace process. Adding that any initiative must include all factions, including that of former Vice President Riek Machar, and discourage the multiplication of armed groups.

South Sudan slipped into civil war in 2013, in a conflict ignited by a feud between President Salva Kiir and Machar, resulting in around one third of the population –fleeing to neighbouring countries for safety.

However, an escalation of fighting since last July that forced Machar to flee the country a month later has seen clashes spread to previously unaffected areas.

READ: African Union, UN seek political solution for South Sudan

"The situation now is somewhat different to what it was a year ago, when it was largely bipolar," Shearer told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.

"We are seeing a lot more of the conflict being played out at a very local level and that is worrying because as it fractures it becomes more difficult to try to put the pieces back together again."

The spike in fighting resulted in South Sudan having the fastest growing refugee population in the world as civilians poured into Uganda. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled to camps within South Sudan that are ringed by U.N. troops.

Peacekeepers have frequently been criticised for failing to do enough to protect civilians but the U.N. leadership says troops are obstructed and restricted by the army.

READ: Warring S.Sudan sides sign peace deal in Uganda

Places at the table

Analysts and diplomats say regional peace efforts have stumbled for much of the last year as neighbouring Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya adopted a more bilateral approach to the conflict.

But Shearer was optimistic that a recent meeting of regional leaders in Ethiopia would result in a more collective approach to the crisis.

"There was a sense that they want to rejuvenate the peace agreement and start moving that forward. That collective effort hasn’t been apparent for the last year," he said.

Machar remains in exile in South Africa, excluded from the process.

Shearer said while regional leaders were reluctant to return to the "old formula" of insisting on a potentially explosive face-to-face between Kiir and Machar, there was recognition that Machar’s camp needed to be represented in talks and he could too, further down the line.

"What we don’t want to do is to encourage a greater degree of conflict or arming of groups in order to be relevant and have a place at the table," he warned.

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