Juba – South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir on Thursday declared a state of emergency in areas hit by deadly inter-communal clashes over cattle raids that have killed hundreds of people in recent months, state TV said.
Cattle raids and clashes over scarce water and grazing land are common in the impoverished east African nation, often exacerbated by extreme weather such as droughts and floods.
“President Salva Kiir has declared a six-month state of emergency in Warrap State and Mayom County of Unity State, following a surge in inter-communal violence, particularly in the Tonj area,” said a Facebook post by the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC).
This decision comes after the appointment of a new governor of Warrap State, “tasked with restoring order and combating rising lawlessness, largely driven by ongoing communal clashes and cattle theft”, the state broadcaster’s statement added.
The UN said on Tuesday that violence between herders in Tonj County, Warrap State, has become frequent, with cattle raids and revenge attacks killing hundreds since December — including over 200 in March and about 80 in recent days.
Guang Cong, the deputy special representative of the UN mission in South Sudan, said urgent intervention from the national government is needed to prevent the conflict from reaching “catastrophic levels”.
In February, a local official condemned a “massacre” in Eastern Equatoria State, where 41 members of a pastoralist community, including women and children, were killed.
The clashes come on top of politically and ethnically driven violence that continues to destabilise the world’s youngest nation, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
Several embassies in early May warned of a deterioration in South Sudan’s security following months of fighting between forces loyal to President Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar.
In early May, several embassies warned of a “clear deterioration” in South Sudan’s security.
Machar’s arrest in March has reignited fears of a return to civil war, nearly seven years after a brutal conflict between the two camps killed an estimated 400,000 people from 2013 to 2018.
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Source: AFP
