At least 39 people were killed and 53 injured on Wednesday in South Sudan in fighting between two groups of herders from neighboring states in the center of the country, local authorities said on Friday.
“The latest report shows 20 people killed, 36 injured and one person still missing”
among the herders from Lakes State, the state police spokesperson told AFP. Major Elijah Mabor Makuac.
The Minister of Information of the neighboring state of Warrap, William Wol Mayom Bol, told AFP that for his part
“19 deaths and 17 injured”
had been recorded.
“Violence has subsided, but minor clashes are reported in inaccessible swampy areas and the number of casualties cannot be verified
,” added a statement from the Warrap Ministry of Information.
In separate statements, the authorities of the two states
“condemned”
this violence.
Clashes over access to resources (water, pastures) or livestock thefts are frequent in South Sudan, which is subject to extreme weather phenomena (drought, floods).
Recurring conflicts each dry season
In this context, conflicts between herders in Tonj County (Warrap) and Rumbek North (Lakes) have become recurrent each dry season, indicated Major Elijah Mabor Makuac.
These conflicts come on top of the political-ethnic violence which is undermining the youngest country in the world, which obtained its independence from Sudan in 2011.
South Sudan then sank into a civil war between sworn enemies Riek Machar and Salva Kiir, which left nearly 400,000 dead and millions displaced between 2013 and 2018. A peace agreement signed in 2018 provides for the principle of a sharing of power within a government of national unity, with Salva Kiir as president and Riek Machar as vice-president.
But it remains largely unimplemented, due to persistent feuds between the two rivals, leaving the country plagued by violence, instability and poverty, despite having oil resources.