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South Sudan raid kills 100
Reuters/Juba, Sudan
More than 100 people were killed when tribesmen raided a south Sudan village, burning buildings and attacking churchgoers, officials said yesterday, in a further escalation of violence in the oil-producing region.
A surge of tribal killings this year has sparked fears for the stability of Sudan’s underdeveloped south, still emerging from two decades of civil war.
Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe attacked the village of Duk Padiet, home to a rival Dinka group, on Sunday morning while many of the villagers were in church, officials said.
The extent of the carnage only emerged yesterday when officials reached the remote settlement in Jonglei state.
A total of 51 villagers and 28 southern soldiers, national security and police officers guarding the settlement were killed, said southern army spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol.
“From the attackers 23 bodies were found on the ground. These attackers were found in uniform with arms and organised in a military organisation in platoons with G3 rifles,” he said.
The UN estimates more than 1,200 people have died in ethnic attacks in south Sudan this year.
Some of the fiercest fighting has been in Jonglei, parts of which are included in a largely unexplored oil concession operated by France’s Total.
Southern politicians have accused their former civil war foes from north Sudan of arming rival tribes to destabilise the region in the build-up to elections in 2010 and a referendum on southern secession in 2011. Khartoum denies the accusation.
“This is a campaign against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (the faltering 2005 accord that ended Sudan’s north-south civil war) and against the people of Duk,” Mayen Ngor, the commissioner of surrounding Duk County, said by phone from near the scene of the attack.
Ngor said the attackers burned down 260 huts, the police station and local government buildings, injuring 46 people and forcing thousands to flee.
South Sudan raid kills 100
Reuters/Juba, Sudan
More than 100 people were killed when tribesmen raided a south Sudan village, burning buildings and attacking churchgoers, officials said yesterday, in a further escalation of violence in the oil-producing region.
A surge of tribal killings this year has sparked fears for the stability of Sudan’s underdeveloped south, still emerging from two decades of civil war.
Fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe attacked the village of Duk Padiet, home to a rival Dinka group, on Sunday morning while many of the villagers were in church, officials said.
The extent of the carnage only emerged yesterday when officials reached the remote settlement in Jonglei state.
A total of 51 villagers and 28 southern soldiers, national security and police officers guarding the settlement were killed, said southern army spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol.
“From the attackers 23 bodies were found on the ground. These attackers were found in uniform with arms and organised in a military organisation in platoons with G3 rifles,” he said.
The UN estimates more than 1,200 people have died in ethnic attacks in south Sudan this year.
Some of the fiercest fighting has been in Jonglei, parts of which are included in a largely unexplored oil concession operated by France’s Total.
Southern politicians have accused their former civil war foes from north Sudan of arming rival tribes to destabilise the region in the build-up to elections in 2010 and a referendum on southern secession in 2011. Khartoum denies the accusation.
“This is a campaign against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (the faltering 2005 accord that ended Sudan’s north-south civil war) and against the people of Duk,” Mayen Ngor, the commissioner of surrounding Duk County, said by phone from near the scene of the attack.
Ngor said the attackers burned down 260 huts, the police station and local government buildings, injuring 46 people and forcing thousands to flee.
