Wüstenschiff

Authorities in Rumbek, the capital of South Sudan’s Lakes state have resumed forceful disarmament after sectional clashes erupted in its Rumbek Central County for the first time. On January 18, Amothnhom and Panyon inter-clans clashes in the state left more than 25 people dead and about 30 who sustained gunshot wounds were admitted to Rumbek civil hospital. Following the outbreak of violence, Lakes state governor Chol Tong Mayay ordered the South Sudanese army (SPLA) and South Sudan Police Services (SSPS) to launch forceful disarmament in three counties comprising of Rumbek central, Cueibet and Rumbek east [...] Recently, about 10 people died in Cueibet county, located in western part of Lakes state, when a group of heavily armed Gok Dinka youth killed seven SPLA soldiers in Malual-chum cattle Camp.

At least two people died Thursday when forces from South Sudan’s army (SPLA) clashed with a group of armed pastoralists at a cattle camp in Lakes state, eyewitnesses told Sudan Tribune. Violence reportedly erupted on grazing land in Toch, located within the Marial-bek cattle camp, when SPLA forces and police surrounded the cattle camp and allegedly ordered a group of youth to vacate the area.

One soldier was killed and another injured in an ambush on a car carrying members of the South Sudanese army (SPLA) travelling from Juba to the Lakes state capital Rumbek on Thursday. A security source told Sudan Tribune the two soldiers were attacked in the Pulkuc area by unknown gunmen. South Sudan’s police and army are working hard to arrest those responsible, the source said, but are struggling to gather information from the local community. [...] Maker Machar Angui, a young man from Lakes state, told Sudan Tribune on Friday that many local pastoralists are “tired” of the cycle of “disarmament” and harassment” that leaves them without protection [...] An attempted cattle raid on Tuesday by unknown gunmen has left four dead, according to community members in Yirol east county in Lakes state [...] Meanwhile, on Wednesday, member for the national parliament Daniel Dhieu Matuet came under attack while travelling from Juba to Lakes state after unknown gunmen opened fire on his car about 2km from Akot payam [district]. No-one was killed or injured in the attack.

South Sudan’s army said it had restored order in Pibor town on Monday after conflict broke out between the military and members of an armed group that has recently defected from a rebellion in Jonglei state. At least one soldier from the South Sudanese army (SPLA) and two civilians are reported to have been killed when SPLA forces and armed men, commanded by former rebel James Kuburin, clashed in the town. Kuburin and his forces surrendered themselves to the SPLA in Pibor on 27 January after a month of living in the bush with rebel leader David Yau Yau.

Three people are said to have been killed and three others wounded in an attack by unknown gunmen on Nyuak payam [district] on Wednesday morning, according to the Commissioner of Twic East County, Dau Akoi Jurkuch. “Another tragedy, it was an attack on women and men who were in the bush, cutting thatching grass. Two women and a man were killed and another three including a woman were injured”, Akoi told Sudan Tribune from Panyangoor. Commissioner Akoi accused members of David Yau Yau’s rebel group of carrying out the attack.

At least 103 civilians and 14 South Sudan army (SPLA) soldiers are missing, feared dead, after an unknown group attacked a village on Friday in South Sudan’s Jonglei state county of Akobo, the state governor told Sudan Tribune. The incident occurred in the remote Walgak village of Akobo. State governor Kuol Manyang confirmed the figures, adding that 14 people, including eight SPLA soldiers were wounded in the attack, while the whereabouts of hundreds of women and children remain unknown. The attack took place at Mantor between Thakuach and Jier localities, more than 100km north-west of Akobo town and about 40km north-east of Walgak payam (district) during the community’s yearly migration to cattle camps at Sobat river.

Die Viehtreiber und ihre Begleiter, vor allem Frauen und Kinder, seien im Bundesstaat Jonglei von Angreifern mit automatischen Waffen überfallen worden [...] Aufständische und Mitglieder rivalisierender Stämme hätten die Opfer aus dem Hinterhalt angegriffen. Der Vieh-Konvoi sei von einer Armeekolonne begleitet worden. 103 Menschen seien getötet worden, unter ihnen 14 Soldaten. 500 Menschen werden noch vermisst. Die Armee bestätigte den Vorfall

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), has strongly condemned Tuesday’s shooting of its peacekeeper in a remote part of the country’s Jonglei state. An unidentified armed group, the mission said in a statement, fired at its patrol moving from Gurmuk to Pibor in Jonglei at around midday, wounding an Indian UN peacekeeper.

Armed violence over the weekend between South Sudan's army and an armed group resulted in scores of casualties in a large and extremely remote area of Jonglei state with limited health-care services. A surgical team of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is performing emergency surgery on 30 wounded people in Pibor town.

At least two people have been killed in a new attack on Jonglei state’s Panwel village, in which 16 head of cattle were seized on Friday afternoon. According to officials at Pariak village, the administrative headquarters of Panwel, the two concurrent attacks were carried out by groups of suspected Murle criminals. One man was killed while herding his cattle and another was killed after he went to the forest to cut trees.

Five United Nations peacekeepers and seven civilian staff from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) were killed on Tuesday in an ambush by an unidentified armed group in Jonglei state [...] Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General equally condemned in the "strongest" term the killing of the five Indian peacekeepers, two UNMISS national staff and five civilian staff contractors in Gumuruk [...] Gumuruk is located in Jonglei’s volatile Pibor county where rebels have been fighting the government on and off since since 2010 when David Yauyau lost his bid to become a member of the state’s parliament, representing the Gumuruk constituency.

Four Kenyans were among the 12 people shot dead by gunmen who attacked a United Nations convoy in South Sudan on Tuesday, officials said Wednesday. Five Indian peacekeepers were also killed when some 200 attackers -- some armed with rocket-propelled grenades -- ambushed the convoy in the troubled eastern region of Jonglei. Two South Sudanese working for the UN and a compatriot working alongside the Kenyans for a water drilling company were also killed, the company said. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that attack could constitute a war crime.

At least 20 people have been killed and nine others injured in clashes between cattle rustlers and security forces in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria state, officials said Thursday. The killings were triggered when cattle raiders stole at least 750 head of cattle in a village in Ikotos County last week.

At least seven people were reported dead and 15 others injured following two consecutive inter-clan clashes in Waat and Walgak in Jonglei state’s Akobo county on Tuesday and Wednesday. The commissioner of Akobo county, Koung Rambeng, described it as long term conflict, tracing it roots back to the killing of a Luo Nuer chief in 2008. Reprisal attacks between the communities killed 19 people on each side following the chief’s death and have continued on and off since then.

The South Sudanese army (SPLA) has recaptured the town of Boma in Jonglei state after a brief battle with rebels led by David Yau Yau, SPLA officials said Monday. “The SPLA yesterday restored law and order to Boma and chased away the militia from Boma town," army spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said. Four SPLA soldiers died in the fighting and 12 were wounded, Aguer said, adding that "20 bodies from the militia side were counted" after the 30-minute battle for Boma, the psychologically important town the was the first captured by the SPLA from the Sudan during the long civil war against Khartoum, which ended in 2005.

At least 29 people were killed when cattle raiders from a South Sudanese minority group opened fire on members of another minority in a village in Upper Nile state, a local official said Sunday. The gunmen crept into Tolleri village in Ulang county in the early hours of Saturday morning and sprayed it with bullets, killing 23 people instantly, said Dak Tap Chuol, commissioner for the nearby town of Nasir. The victims of the attack were from the minority Jikany people, the official said, and the attackers were Murle,

Dozens are feared dead in Jonglei state after fresh fighting broke out between ethnic Lou Nuer and Murle, officials said Thursday. Local officials say the fighting started a week ago but were unable to say what caused the unrest.[ In a letter sent to Jonglei Governor Kuol Manyang Juuk, Pibor County Commissioner Joshua Konyi said Lou Nuer youths attacked the Murle village of Nanaam on Friday. The fighting subsequently spread to villages in Pibor county, he said. Baba Medan, a member of Parliament representing northern Pibor in the Jonglei state assembly, accused a prominent Lou Nuer spiritual leader, Dak Kueth, of leading the youths to attack the Murle.

Fighting in South Sudan's Jonglei state, where tribal militia forces are reported to be marching on a rival group, risks spiralling into "outright ethnic conflict", European diplomats warned on Saturday. Local government officials report that Lou Nuer gunmen from northern Jonglei are heading south towards Pibor, an area of their rivals, the Murle. Previous such attacks in the troubled eastern region have seen hundreds -- if not thousands -- of civilians killed.

Fears grew on Sunday of heavy casualties in South Sudan's Jonglei state following more than a week of bitter tribal fighting, after the UN reported at least 200 wounded were found in just one village alone. "Some 200 casualties have arrived in Manyabol", a remote village in the troubled eastern state of Jonglei, where militia gunmen from rival ethnic groups have been battling, said Toby Lanzer, the top United Nations humanitarian official in the country said. Manyabol is only one settlement in a vast region affected by the fighting, fuelling concerns that the number injured or killed elsewhere in the impoverished state could be far higher.