Deadly communal clashes leave 42 killed in Abyei Administrative Area

Communal clashes between Ngok Dinka and Nuer armed youth on Saturday left 42 people killed in Abyei Administrative Area near South Sudan.

Bulis Koch, the minister of information for Abyei Administrative Area said on Sunday that Nuer armed youth attacked Ngok Dinka in Nyinkuac, Majbong and Khadian areas leading to heavy causalities, adding that a Ghanaian peacekeeper was also killed.

 “What happened is that one of the Nuer youth came out of the Madol IDP camp and went to Abyei town with a gun and when the police followed him he hurriedly went back to the camp running and passed by women fetching water from the borehole, when the women saw him running into the camp with a weapon they ran into different direction and the armed youth within the camp started shooting at people,” Koch told Juba Echo in an interview.

He said the violence in different places left 35 people wounded.

Koch said that the Nuer youth are allied to the Twic community which has been engaged in intermittent fighting with Ngok Dinka of Abyei over the past years.

Koc said the United Nations Interim Forc For Abyei (UNISFA) have been deployed to protect civilians in Madol IDP camp.

He disclosed that a 24 hour curfew has been declared in Abyei Administrative Area following the violence.

In November 2023, 32 people were killed in deadly communal fighting between Twic and Ngok Dinka communities in Abyei.

The two communities have been contesting for years the ownership of a strip of land in the Aneet border area, which separates the two communities.

Abyei Administrative Area remains a contested area, between South Sudan and its neighbor Sudan which is currently mired in conflict since April 15.