At least 54 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and 11 others injured in a recent attack by cattle raiders in southern Sudan, two English-language newspapers have reported.
The English-language daily the Khartoum Monitor, which focuses largely on southern issues, reported on Monday that heavily armed members of the Toposa tribe near the Sudanese-Kenya border attacked the village of Lauro Payam, killing 49 women and children and five men and injuring several more.
The commissioner of Budi county, Oreste Lopara, said in a statement that the attacks occurred on May 4, according to the Sudan Tribune.
Lopara said two Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) companies accompanied him to the area to assess the damages and restore calm, according to the paper.
The SPLA, ethnic African non-Muslims, fought a two-decades-long war against the mainly Arab central government in Khartoum that ended three years ago. The conflict, separate from the violence in Darfur, western Sudan, was blamed for more than two million deaths, primarily from war-induced famine and disease.
Southern Sudan has its own regional government under the 2004 comprehensive peace agreement that ended the civil war. Under the agreement, the region can hold a referendum in 2011 on whether to become an independent country. — Sapa-AP