Greater than 50 individuals together with girls, kids and two UN peacekeepers had been killed in assaults alongside South Sudan’s border with Sudan, officers mentioned, the deadliest in a spate of incidents since 2021 associated to a boundary dispute.
Armed younger males from South Sudan’s Warrap State carried out the raids into the neighbouring Abyei area on Saturday, Bulis Koch, the data minister for Abyei, mentioned on Monday.
Abyei is an oil-rich space that’s collectively administered by South Sudan and Sudan, which have each staked claims to it.
Koch informed Reuters that 52 native individuals, amongst them girls, kids and law enforcement officials, had been killed in the course of the assaults on Saturday. An additional 64 individuals had been wounded.
“Due to the present dire safety scenario at hand, which has created fears and panic, we’ve imposed a curfew,” he mentioned.
A Ghanaian peacekeeper from a United Nations power based mostly in Abyei was killed when its base within the city of Agok was attacked amid the violence, the UN Interim Safety Drive for Abyei (UNISFA) mentioned on Sunday.
In additional violence a day later, a second peacekeeper, from Pakistan, was killed and 4 of his colleagues and a civilian wounded whereas transporting civilians from a UNISFA base to a hospital, UNISFA mentioned on Monday. It gave no additional particulars.
Koch mentioned a whole lot of displaced civilians had sought shelter at a UNISFA base.
William Wol, Warrap State’s info minister, mentioned his authorities would conduct an investigation collectively with the Abyei administration.
There have been repeated clashes in Abyei between rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group associated to a dispute over the situation of an administrative boundary the place important tax income is collected from cross-border commerce.
Koch mentioned younger Dinka males from Warrap and the forces of a insurgent chief from the Nuer ethnic group carried out the assaults towards Dinkas and Nuers in Abyei.
Civil warfare in South Sudan, erupting quickly after the nation gained independence from Sudan, and fought largely alongside ethnic strains between Dinkas and Nuers, prompted a whole lot of 1000’s of deaths between 2013 and 2018.
Since then, routine clashes amongst a patchwork of armed teams have continued to kill and displace massive numbers of civilians. Combating in Abyei in November killed no less than 32 individuals.
