Militia attack kills 43 in South Sudan's Jonglei state
State Minister Dut Achuek puts the death toll of the two-day violence between the Murle and Dinka Bor ethnic groups at 50, including at least 23 women. He says most of the victims were civilians whose homes were burned and livestock stolen.
In this photo from Thursday, January 12, 2012, victims of ethnic violence in Jonglei, state, South Sudan, wait in line at the World Food Programme distribution centre in Pibor to receive emergency food rations. (File photo)
A tribal militia killed at least 43 people in South Sudan's central Jonglei state, local officials said on Wednesday, as part of a cycle of tit-for-tat revenge killings that local authorities have so far been powerless to stop.
The killings are the latest chapter in a chain of revenge attacks, cattle raiding and child abduction between the Murle ethnic group and another group, the Dinka Bor.
Raiders from the Murle ethnic group killed 20 men, 22 women and one child, and injured 19 people in the small village of Duk Payel on Tuesday, Jonglei Information Minister Jocab Akech Deng said.
But Dut Achuek, a state minister, said eight people died in an attack on Monday in Jonglei state, while a follow-up raid on Tuesday left "23 women killed and...19 men killed."
Most of the victims were civilians whose homes were burned and livestock stolen, Achuek said.
Both attacks, by armed men from the Murle ethnic group, targeted Dinkas living in villages around 150 kilometres (90 miles) north of Bor, the state capital.
Rivalry between ethnic groups
Kudumoc Nyakurono, information minister for neighbouring Boma state, confirmed the involvement of Murle militia from the area.
"There are some villages which were attacked by some youth from Murle in Pibor," said Nyakurono, State Information Minister of Boma.
"The government of Boma state has condemned this attack and we have sent commissioners and representatives from here to go and find out which village has organised this attack so that we can bring them to justice."
Rival pastoralist communities in South Sudan have a long and bloody history of tit-for-tat raids in which cattle are rustled and property looted, and women are commonly raped and children abducted, adding fuel to revenge attacks.
In one of the worst such cases, more than 3,000 people were killed when members of a well-armed Nuer militia attacked the Murle in 2012.
UN mission in South Sudan
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) siad on Wednesday that the mission is sending a peacekeeping patrol and human rights monitors to the area.
"UNMISS deplores any incidents in which innocent civilians are killed. The mission will continue to support the reconciliation efforts on the ground between communities to ease tensions and end the cycle of revenge," said mission spokesman Daniel Dickinson.
Oil-rich South Sudan dissolved into civil war in 2013 and is driven by rivalry between rebels, military and militias. More than a third of the country's 12 million-strong population have fled their homes.
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