The United Nations Security Council is calling on leaders in conflict-torn South Sudan to control their rival armed forces, and it warns that ongoing attacks on civilians and U.N. facilities may constitute war crimes.

Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho, the current president of the 15-member body, spoke for the council late Sunday in New York, after more than three hours of emergency consultations about the crisis in the capital, Juba. He called conditions on the ground an “urgent situation,” and said that at least one Chinese peacekeeper had been killed and several Rwandan peacekeepers wounded.

There were no official estimates of casualties by late Sunday, and it remained unclear whether troops loyal to President Salva Kiir or those backing First Vice President Riek Machar would heed the U.N. demands.  Local radio in the capital earlier reported as many as 276 dead, while a spokesman for Machar said at least 150 were killed, with scores of others wounded.

Ambassador Bessho also urged Kiir and Machar to “genuinely commit themselves to the full and immediate implementation of the [2015] peace agreement” that ended a devastating two-year civil war in the impoverished country.

Both leaders on Saturday issued joint calls for calm in the capital, but to little avail.

Witnesses said Sunday’s fighting hit a U.N. encampment for displaced people for a second time in as many days, and also targeted a rebel base in the capital.  Separately, a spokesman for Machar told Reuters that the vice president’s residence had come under attack by Kiir loyalists. There was no immediate confirmation of that report.

Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer tribesman, fought each other in a two-year civil war that erupted after the president fired Machar in 2013.  Machar has since been reinstated as part of the peace deal reached late last year that also led to the formation of a transitional unity government. 

However, neither leader has yet offered a workable plan to integrate their forces.

Gunfire first erupted late Thursday when five soldiers backing the president were killed in a clash with Machar loyalists at a security checkpoint near a medical clinic in Juba.  

Hours later, as the two officials met at the presidential palace, U.N. observers reported heavy gunfire and shelling near the camp for internal refugees. Other witnesses reported gunfire across much of the area.

The latest fighting in Africa’s newest nation was the first major outbreak of violence since Machar was reappointed vice president in April.

The World Food Program says 4.8 million South Sudanese are facing severe food shortages this year, with parts of the impoverished country on the brink of famine.  It also says fighting has driven 2.4 million residents from their homes, while hundreds of thousands of others have fled the country as refugees.

With the country’s fragile economy in shambles, monitors predict as many as 1 million South Sudanese will have fled the country by the end of the year.
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