Oct 5 (Reuters) – South Sudan’s president has blamed the military in the north for an escalation in violence in his semi-autonomous region emerging from decades of civil war, a southern official said on Monday.
More than 1,200 people have been killed by ethnic fighting this year, fuelled by a huge supply of weapons left over from over two decades of north-south war that ended with a 2005 peace deal, now faltering. Khartoum denies any involvement in the escalation in violence.
The north armed proxy militias in south Sudan during the war to intensify divisions.
The remote and marshy Jonglei state, where French oil giant Total holds a massive, mainly unexplored concession, has been particularly hard hit by cattle raiding and related killings that have fractured communities along ethnic lines.
Here are details of some of the worst fighting:
MARCH 5-13 – At least 453 people, mainly women and children, are killed in attacks by the Lou Nuer tribe on at least 17 villages of the rival Murle ethnic group in Jonglei. The Lou Nuer say the incidents were retaliation for large-scale cattle raiding and attacks on Lou Nuer villages in January.
APRIL 18-19 – At least 177 people are killed in attacks on 16 villages of the Lou Nuer tribe by Murle fighters. Women and children are targeted in what are widely seen as revenge attacks for the March violence.
JUNE 12 – Jikany Nuer, like the Lou a sub-group of the large Nuer tribe, attack barges carrying U.N. food aid on the Sobat River to Lou Nuer areas in Jonglei. At least 40 southern soldiers and boat crew are killed.
AUG. 2 – Murle attack a Lou Nuer fishing settlement near Akobo town in Jonglei State, killing 185 people. Southern soldiers guarding the camp are also killed.
AUG. 28 – Around 800 Lou Nuer attack Wernyol, a Dinka Bor village in Jonglei State, killing 38 and wounding 76. The south’s army said this was the work of a Lou Nuer militia, adding that a Murle militia also exists.
SEPT. 20 – A large group of fighters from the Lou Nuer ethnic group attack Duk Padiet village, inhabited by the Dinka Hol tribe, in Jonglei. More than 100 people are killed.
OCT. 3-5 – At least 23 people are killed and 21 injured in tit-for-tat cattle raids between the Mundari and Dinka Bor tribes, the deputy governor of Jonglei state says. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/ ) (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)
حركة العدل و المساواة السودانية
موقع متخصص بنقل آخر الأخبار و البيانات و القرارات لحركة العدل و المساواة السودانية