Tribal fighters attack South Sudan food barges

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Armed tribesmen attacked barges carrying U.N. food aid in south Sudan, leaving an unknown number of casualties in the latest in an outbreak of ethnic violence, officials said on Saturday.
Members of the Jikany Nuer tribe attacked 27 boats as they were carrying tonnes of food toward an area controlled by a rival ethnic group down the Sobat river on Friday afternoon, said the U.N.’s World Food Programme.
The remote region has seen a surge in ethnic fighting in recent months, fueled by traditional disputes over cattle and a ready supply of guns after more than two decades of civil war.
Officials said they were still trying to get detailed information on the attack which happened on the tributary of the While Nile close to the border with Ethiopia.
“We don’t have information on how many people were killed or injured. But everyone we have talked to has described it as an attack,” said Michelle Iseminger, the WFP’s head of programs in southern Sudan.
“Many of the boats are unaccounted for.”
Iseminger said the barges, carrying sorghum and other food for thousands of people displaced by tribal fighting, set off from the town of Nasir in Upper Nile State, but failed to arrive at their destination of Akobo.
So far, sixteen of the boats had returned to Nasir, and appeared to have been looted, she added.
Iseminger said the boats and their crews had been contracted to carry the food for the WFP and included an escort of soldiers from the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army. No U.N. officers were on board, she added
At least 49 people were killed when fighters from the Lou Nuer tribe raided the village of Torkeij, home to the Jikany Nuer, in Upper Nile state in May, in apparent revenge for cattle thefts.
Sudan’s two-decade north-south war, which ended in 2005, left painful scars in the south, where some ethnic groups sided with northern forces.
The United Nations and South Sudan’s government fear the violence may disrupt the fragile peace process and preparations for next February’s national elections, a pillar of the 2005 peace accord.
(Reporting by Andrew Heavens)