Unknown gunmen killed 38 civilians in at least five attacks in southern Sudan, a regional government official said on Thursday.
“A group of armed men yesterday [Wednesday] killed 38 people, among whom were women and children, and destroyed several cars on roads between Juba and the eastern bank of the Nile,” southern Sudan’s interior minister, Paul Mayom Akec, told reporters in Juba.
He refused to speculate on who might have carried out the attacks. But southern Sudan is hosting peace talks between neighbouring Uganda and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, long based in lawless parts of the south and often blamed for violence there.
“It is not my immediate desire to talk about the identity of the attackers … no matter whoever they can be, in order for us not to jeopardise the ongoing peace talks,” Akec said.
Negotiations have stalled in recent days as both Uganda’s military and the LRA accused each other of breaking a landmark truce signed in August that aimed to end 20 years of war.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is due this weekend in the southern capital, Juba, to meet mediators.
A United Nations spokesperson in Khartoum confirmed ambushes on two roads around Juba on Wednesday. She had no information of casualties.
“We had reports of two confirmed ambushes by unknown armed groups,” Radhia Achouri said. A UN bulletin said all road movement was suspended around Juba for the following 48 hours. — Reuters
Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in Khartoum