Khartoum, Aug 2 (IANS): Scores of young people and government soldiers were killed in violent clashes between armed tribal groups in South Sudan, said a minister.

The casualties took place in Yambio, capital of western Equatoria state, on Saturday, said Information Minister Charles Kisanga, who did not give a specific number of victims, reported Xinhua.

The clashes prompted panic among the people in the city, and forced a majority of them to flee to a nearby United Nations mission base.

South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to president Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes have left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.9 million people to flee their homes.