At least 25 people have been killed, including a tribal chief, his three wives and several children, while dozens have been wounded, in clashes in a southern Sudan village, the South Sudan army has said.
Source: The Agencies
- Some 50 armed and masked men in military uniform from the Shilluk tribe attacked the village of Bony-Thiang in Upper Nile state on Friday morning, killing civilians of the Dinka tribe, the army said on Saturday.
- Dinka fighters mounted a retaliatory attack on a nearby Shilluk village on Buol on Saturday morning, killing at least five, Kuol Diem Kuol, an army spokesman, said.
- The incidents were the latest in a rising wave of tribal violence in South Sudan that has killed more than 2,000 people, including many women and children, and displaced another 250,000, according to the UN.
- Rival tribes from Sudan's underdeveloped south have clashed for years in disputes often caused by cattle rustling and long-running feuds, but violence has soared this year.
- The United Nations said the attacks could mar preparations for Sudan's for national and presidential elections due in April 2010.
- Lise Grady, a UN Humanitarian Coordinator for southern Sudan, told Al Jazeera that “The area was not previously affected by the food crisis or inter-tribal violence and it’s not inconceivable that this is a politically motivated attack linked to the upcoming elections."
- The elections are required under the 2005 peace deal that ended the north-south civil war.
- Sudan is also scheduled to hold a referendum in January 2011 on whether South Sudan should become independent.
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