UN sends aid mission to South Sudan

More than 3,000 dead in tribal fighting, local official says

JUBA // The United Nations will launch a humanitarian operation to help an estimated 50,000 people affected by ethnic violence in South Sudan’s Jonglei state.

The programme is aimed at helping thousands of people to return home after clashes between the Lou Nuer and Murle communities, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement yesterday.

“The situation in humanitarian terms is grim,” said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan. More than 3,000 people were killed in South Sudan in massacres last week in ethnic violence that forced tens of thousands to flee, a county official in South Sudan, said.

“There have been mass killings, a massacre,” said Joshua Konyi, the commissioner for Pibor county in Jonglei state.

“We have been out counting the bodies, and we calculate so far that 2,182 women and children were killed and 959 men died.”

United Nations and South Sudanese army officials have yet to confirm the death tolls.

If confirmed, the killings of 3,141 people would be the worst outbreak of ethnic violence ever seen in the fledgling nation, which split from Sudan in July.

A column of some 6,000 rampaging armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe last week marched on the remote town of Pibor, home to the rival Murle people, whom they blame for abductions and cattle raiding and have vowed to exterminate. The Lou Nuer gunmen attacked Pibor at the weekend, torching huts and looting a hospital, and only withdrew after government troops opened fire. More than 1,000 children are missing, feared abducted, while tens of thousands of cows were stolen, added Mr Konyi, who is an ethnic Murle.

“We are awaiting reports from our [military] forces on the ground,” said South Sudan army spokesman Philip Aguer. “For the assessment to be credible they must have gone into the villages to count all the bodies.”

South Sudan has declared Jonglei state a national “disaster area” according to the government’s website.

Both ethnic groups must “return all the abducted women and children of both sides and reunite them with their communities”, the government said.

Lou Nuer fighters were returning homeward, after the army and UN peacekeepers beefed up reinforcements in Pibor, while the World Food Programme has flown in emergency rations to support the thousands displaced.

A statement from a group calling itself the “Nuer White Army” said their attacks against the Murle had been “successful” and warned of more assaults if the Murle retaliate.

“If they did that, we will launch surprise attacks which will lead to more bloodshed and displacements,” it said, warning the government “any attempt to disarm the Nuer White Army will lead to catastrophe”.

Doctors Without Borders, the main healthcare provider for the estimated 160,000 people in Pibor county, has temporarily suspended its operations after the clashes forced them to evacuate staff.

Agence France-presse