JUBA: South Sudanese soldiers and rebels said they clashed in a state bordering Sudan, killing at least 15 people as violence raged on in the world’s youngest nation after months of failed talks and peace accords. The army said it moved in after spotting rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar trying to steal cattle in the small village of Adaab el Bahr in Unity State on Wednesday evening. The rebels then caught them in an ambush, which carried on for just short of an hour, said the military’s deputy spokesman Col. Santo Dominic Chol. South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 – a development greeted at the time with mass celebrations inside the landlocked, oil-producing state. Aid agencies and world powers promised support. But fighting, largely along ethnic lines, erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir sacked his longtime political rival Machar.