At least 115 soldiers from different armed factions in South Sudan have died after gun battles broke out across the capital Juba on the eve of the country's fifth independence anniversary, according to reports.
The fighting on Friday began outside the presidential compound as President Salva Kiir was meeting with first vice president and former rebel leader Riek Machar and soon spread through the city.
An Al Jazeera correspondent later saw bodies of soldiers on the lawn in the compound.
William Gatjiath Deng, spokesman for Machar's military faction, said the fighting had occurred near the state house and in army barracks.
"In the morning we collected and counted 35 (dead) from the SPLM-IO (Machar's faction) and 80 people from the government forces," he was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency on Saturday.
Local broadcaster Radio Tamazuj put the number of total deaths to 146. 
South Sudan was founded with celebrations in the capital on July 9, 2011, after it gained independence from Sudan in a referendum that passed with close to 100 percent of the vote.