South Sudan’s government signed a cease-fire with the rebels who’ve plunged the nascent nation into bloody chaos for the past five weeks.  The UN Secretary General and Security Council welcome the news to end the hostilities that have killed more than a thousand people.

The deal is expected to be fully in effect within 24 hours of the signing ceremony, already completed.  Getting the rebel groups to stop fighting will be considered a test of former vice president and rebel leader Riek Machar authority.  His loyalists are among the rebel groups, as are more independently minded militias with their own agendas.

“The crisis that gripped South Sudan is a mere manifestation of the challenges that face the young and fledgling state,” said Seyoum Mesfin, the chief mediator for the IGAD group of East African nations that fostered the peace process.  “I believe that the postwar challenges will be greater than the war itself.  The process will be unpredictable and delicate.”

The five weeks of fighting left at least 468,000 people out of their homes, displaced across national borders or within South Sudan.  70,000 of them sought shelter at UN peacekeeper bases.