Rebels kidnap 8 local aid workers
The aid workers were taken from a village near Mayendit, about 680 kilometres of northeast of Juba.
Rebel fighters hold up their rifles in Upper Nile State, South Sudan, file. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic/File Photo
Recommended articles
Report says food in the famine-hit nation looks increasingly likely to become a weapon of war.
Brig.-Gen. Lul Koang told newsmen that the aid workers were taken from a village near Mayendit, about 680 kilometres of northeast of Juba.
“The rebels attacked and abducted eight local staff from Samaritan’s Purse and they are being held to ransom.
ADVERTISEMENT
“They have demanded that the organisation takes aid to them,’’ he said.
However, no one at the charity was available for comment.
“Clashes between the army and rebels killed at least 23 people and injured 56 in the same area on Sunday, with the insurgents attacking government positions, looting and setting fire to houses in the oil-rich Bieh state.
“They attacked our position on Sunday. Our forces fought back in self-defence and managed to repulse the attackers,’’ Koang said.
A rebel spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
ADVERTISEMENT
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, has been mired in civil war since President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, sacked his deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer, in 2013.
The fighting has split much of the country along ethnic lines and paralysed agriculture, prompting the UN to declare in February, that parts of the country were suffering from famine.
JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!
ADVERTISEMENT
Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:
Email: news@pulselive.co.ke
Next story