‘Women, children, and the elderly’ targeted in deadly sectarian
clashes
Gunmen reportedly killed dozens of villagers in South
Sudan's beleaguered Jonglei state late Monday. The
state's governor said the victims were mostly "women,
children, and the elderly" and that the attackers burned
the town overnight.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - Gunmen killed at least 51 people in the latest ethnic clashes in South Sudan's
troubled Jonglei state, the region's governor said Tuesday.
"The whole night (Monday) they burned the town... 51 are confirmed dead and now we
have 22 (injured) evacuated to Juba," said Jonglei governor Kuol Manyang.
Armed men stormed the village of Duk Padiet in northern Jonglei late Monday, with
most of those killed "women, children and the elderly," Manyang told AFP.
"We are expecting more to be injured because they ran to the villages last night," he said,
blaming gunmen from the Murle ethnic group for the attack.
Remote and impoverished Jonglei has seen a dramatic escalation of bloody tit-for-tat
attacks between rival ethnic groups over cattle raids and abduction of people.
Newly-independent South Sudan has declared Jonglei a national "disaster area" while the
United Nations has launched a "massive emergency" operation to help some 60,000
people affected by the violence.
Last month an 8,000-strong tribal militia of Lou Nuer youths marched on Pibor, to exact
revenge on the Murle people there for alleged attacks, abductions and cattle raiding.
Now officials claim the latest violence is the Murle's response.
One attacker was killed, a suspected Murle man wearing military fatigues, Manyang said.
The village "was attacked by people positively identified as the Murle armed youth," said
Philip Thon Leek Deng, the local MP.
Deng said that large herds of cattle had been stolen in a series of raids in area last week,
but the attack Monday targeted people.