United Nations peacekeepers stand near an airstrip in Akobo, South Sudan, in February
At least 169 people have been killed after dozens of armed men attacked a town in South Sudan’s Ruweng Administrative Area, local officials said.
A group of unidentified youths from Mayom County in neighbouring Unity state stormed Abiemnhom County on Sunday, the area’s information minister, James Monyluak Mijok, said on Monday.
Of those killed, 82 were children, women, and the elderly, he told the Reuters news agency.
Fifty other people sustained “major and minor injuries” in the attack, he added.
“I would like to sadly inform you that among those killed were the county commissioner and the executive director,” Mijok said.
Elizabeth Achol, the minister of health in northern Ruweng, told AFP news agency by telephone that all 169 bodies were laid to rest in a mass grave on Monday.
Mijok told AFP “the figure [death toll] may increase further if more bodies are discovered”.
The official earlier told Anadolu Agency that the fighting lasted for three to four hours, before the army was able to drive the attackers out of the area. Abiemnhom authorities were now in complete control, he said.
“The Government of the Ruweng Administrative Area (GRAA) condemns this barbaric action and policy of extermination in the strongest terms. This human slaughter is equivalent to genocide and cannot be tolerated,” Mijok told Anadolu.
He called on the government of Unity state to bring the culprits to justice.
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) on Sunday expressed alarm over the surging violence in Abiemnhom over the past 48 hours, saying 23 people were injured in an attack there.
“In response to the deteriorating security situation, peacekeepers are temporarily sheltering over 1,000 civilians within the UNMISS base in the area and providing emergency medical care to the injured,” UNMISS added in a statement.
Humanitarians ‘unaccounted for’ after Jonglei violence
The violence highlights concerns, including from the UN, of deepening instability since the arrest of former First Vice President Riek Machar a year ago.
President Salva Kiir signed a peace agreement with Machar in 2018 to end five years of civil war that killed an estimated 400,000 people.
But implementation of the deal has been slow, and the opposing forces have clashed frequently over disagreements about how to share power.
On Monday, Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French initials MSF, said 26 of its staff members were missing after a surge in violence in Jonglei state in recent weeks.
“Twenty-six of the 291 MSF colleagues working in Lankien and Pieri remain unaccounted for following the recent violence, and we have lost contact with them amid ongoing insecurity,” it said in a statement.
MSF has suspended medical services in Lankien and Pieri, both in Jonglei, which has seen major clashes between government and opposition forces since December.
An MSF facility in Lankien was hit by a government air strike on February 3, the NGO said.
“Many of our staff were forced to flee the violence alongside their families. Several are now displaced, sheltering in remote areas with little access to food, water or basic services,” the statement added.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has been beset by civil war, poverty and massive corruption since it was formed in 2011.
