JUBA – Officials said on Tuesday that fighting between local groups in western South Sudan killed at least 26 people, while the country’s president and his deputy called for an end to the rising sectarian violence.
More than 150 people have been killed since last week in separate conflicts between armed youths from Warrap state and their rivals from the neighboring Lakes and Western Bahr el Ghazal states and Abyei, an administrative area shared by South Sudan and Sudan.
These conflicts do not seem to be directly related to each other, but they all concern the control of land and natural resources, and one of the activists said he doubted the existence of political motives behind the violence.
South Sudan officially enjoys peace since the 2018 agreement that ended a five-year conflict that killed hundreds of thousands, but local violence between rival communities still erupts from time to time.
President Salva Kiir and his first deputy Riek Machar, whose forces clashed during the civil war between 2013 and 2018, met to call for “ending the internal violence in parts of the country”, according to what the government published on the X social media platform.
Elections are scheduled for later this year to choose the leaders who will succeed the current transitional government.
Arkangelo Anyar Anyar, the acting governor of Western Bahr el Ghazal state, told Reuters that the latest clashes occurred on Monday when armed youths from Warrap state attacked a police station and a market in the state and burned them.
He added that eight security personnel and 10 civilians from his state were killed.
William Wol, the information minister in Warrap, said that eight from his state were also killed. He said the reason for the outbreak of the fighting was a dispute over fertile land used for grazing and agriculture.
Edmund Yakani, the executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a group of activists, said he was surprised to see local groups armed with such heavy weapons and believes that some political leaders are encouraging violence to delay the elections.
He added, “The politicians in power are very afraid that their chances of returning to power will be limited if they go to the polling stations.”
Al-Yurae- (Reuters)
