While most expatriate aid workers left South Sudan after a brutal attack on foreigners in the capital, a group of Catholic missionaries have chosen to stay.

"We stayed because we are committed to the ordinary people who are suffering so much," La Sallian Christian Brother Bill Firman, director of Solidarity with South Sudan, said in a telephone interview on Monday from Juba, the capital.

"My colleagues and I believe this is a good place for religious to be," the Australian brother said, noting that "we know our continued presence encourages" local residents and "provides some hope."