Juba, South Sudan: Three United Nations peacekeepers from India were killed when a base sheltering civilians in South Sudan was stormed on Thursday, officials have said.
The compound of the UN mission in Akobo was besieged by local youths from the Nuer community intent on revenge for alleged targeted killings of their kinsmen in the capital, Juba.
Witnesses in Akobo, in South Sudan’s restive Jonglei state, said the perimeter was overrun and civilians, government officials from the country’s most populous tribe, the Dinka, and UN peacekeepers were among the casualties.
India’s UN ambassador, Asoke Mukerji, said three of his country’s troops were killed. It was the first announcement of UN fatalities from this week’s upsurge of ethnic-based violence.
Meanwhile, respected former government minister Jok Madut Jok said South Sudan was facing a possible slide into civil war if political leaders did not agree to urgent talks.
Having just returned from an academic post in the US, he said in an open letter that the violence had been triggered by infighting in the multi-ethnic presidential guard, also known as the Tigers.
Guard members from South Sudan’s two largest communities — the Dinka and the second most populous, the Nuer — had an argument that turned into a shooting match.
When Nuer members of the Tigers climbed onto a roof adjacent to the president’s residence and started to fire into it, they were hit in return with artillery fire. The attack on President Kiir’s compound prompted accusations of an attempted coup.
A roundup of prominent critics of the government, including at least 11 former cabinet members began and the president blamed prominent Nuer politician, Riek Machar, the man he sacked six months ago from the vice president’s job.
