At least 10 dead after ethnic raid

AT least 10 people were killed in the South Sudanese town of Wau yesterday as ethnic militias went from house to house searching for people from other groups. Streets were deserted as families hid inside. Witnesses said the militias were aligned to the government’s side in the country’s ethnically charged civil war and accused army soldiers of blocking the main road to a civilian encampment protected by UN peacekeepers.

South Sudan’s deputy army spokesman, Colonel Santo Domic Chol, said fighting had first broken out during a mutiny by soldiers at the town’s prison.

“Four soldiers in Wau prison decided to mutiny and shot at their own colleagues. They killed two,” he said.

He said there had been fighting in Wau state for the past three days but had no further details on yesterday’s fighting, apart from the fact it was taking place along ethnic lines.

Five residents, all of whom asked not to be named, described members of the president’s Dinka ethnic group searching for members of the Lou and Fertit groups.

“We are still inside hiding. Nobody was killed in my house, but I have seen the bodies of four of my neighbours,” one man said.

“Armed militias are moving from house to house,” another resident said. “It is an ethnic crackdown.”

Another said he had fled an attack that had killed many people, including his cousin.

In another part of Wau, a resident said they saw two bodies near a feeding centre and a couple killed by the road as they tried to flee to a civilian encampment protected by the UN.

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, fired his deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer.

Fighting since then has often split the oil-producing country along ethnic lines and created a patchwork of armed factions.

The war in a territory already awash with weapons after decades of conflict has fuelled ethnic tensions over land and grazing grounds.

More than 200 000 people have taken refuge in UN camps set up across the country after widespread ethnic killings, many by soldiers in the country’s civil war. Campaign groups have accused both sides of atrocities.