[h=1]S. Sudan army takes charge of security in troubled town[/h]
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An army officer in South Sudan in Pibor Town.
By AFP (email the author)
Posted Wednesday, January 4 2012 at 00:00
In Summary
Insurgency. Gunmen burned grass thatched huts and looted a hospital in the worst flare-up in a dispute that has left more than 1,000 dead in recent months.
South Sudan's army is in "full control" of a flashpoint town, after thousands of villagers fled into the bush to escape a marauding militia army in the world's newest country, officials said yesterday.
A column of some 6,000 armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe marched on the remote town of Pibor in troubled Jonglei state, home to the rival Murle people, who they blame for cattle raiding and have vowed to exterminate.
"Pibor is under the full control of the government, and the Lou Nuer have been ordered to return to their homes, and they are starting to do so," Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said.
Gunmen burned thatched huts and looted a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the worst flare-up in a dispute that has left more than 1,000 dead in recent months and threatened to destabilise the fledgling nation.
UN steps in
The government and the UN, which has warned the ethnic violence could lead to a "major tragedy"- were beefing up their forces in the area.
Lise Grande, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, said "probably well over 20,000," people had fled into the bush "running for their lives and looking for safety." Officials fear the fighting has left scores of people dead, while the UN has flown wounded to the capital Juba.
But Mr Benjamin said the violence of the cattle vendetta would be brought under control, saying that "South Sudan is not, and will not become, some kind of Somalia."
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Just one health clinic remains to provide healthcare for some 160,000 people in Pibor county, after Pibor hospital and a clinic at nearby Lekongol village run by Doctors Without Borders were looted.
Mr Parthesarathy Rajendran, the head Doctors without Borders of mission in South Sudan, warned that the longer people stay in the bush the "more serious it will become for people who are injured or sick."
"They fled in haste and have no food or water, some of them doubtless carrying wounds or injuries, and now they are on their own, hiding, beyond the reach of humanitarian assistance," Rajendran said in a statement.