Cape Town — South Sudan on Monday swore in hundreds of lawmakers to a newly created national parliament, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

A total of 588 MPs - a mix of delegates from the ruling party and former rebel factions who signed the truce that ended the country's civil war - took the oath of office at a ceremony in Juba presided over by the chief justice.

The creation of an inclusive national assembly was a key condition of the 2018 ceasefire that paused five years of bloodshed that left nearly 400,000 people dead.

President Salva Kiir did not attend the event.

AFP is also reporting that government security agents on Monday arrested at least two prominent activists who joined a call for a peaceful public uprising to seek political change.

A coalition of civil society groups last week issued a declaration saying they had "had enough" after 10 years of independence marked by civil war, escalating insecurity, hunger and political instability.

Kuel Aguer Kuel, a former state governor, and renowned analyst Augustino Ting Mayai, were arrested in the capital Juba for signing the declaration, said Rajab Mohandis, another of the signatories.