Surge of killings in South Sudan’s Jonglei

[Vikawe P]

Women andchildren are increasingly targeted in a surge of violence in South Sudan’sJonglei state, riven by ethnic killings, a rebellion and an army crackdown,Doctors Without Borders said.”Tens of thousands of men, women and children havebeen repeatedly attacked, killed and displaced, with devastating impacts ontheir lives,” the report by the medical aid agency MSF read, documenting anupsurge in violence since 2011.”The lives and health of Jonglei’s populationare hanging by a thread,” said Chris Lockyear, MSF’s operational manager,warning of a further “spike in violence” in the approaching dry season.Violenceincludes an escalation of traditional cattle raiding between rival tribes intoa wave of brutal revenge attacks, exacerbated by an easy availability ofautomatic weapons.The nature of the attacks is shifting, MSF said, documentingmultiple cases of rape in the vast and grossly impoverished state, while fourof MSF’s six clinics in Jonglei have also been looted or destroyed since 2011.”Whileappropriating cattle used to be the main aim of the attacks, nowadays civiliansare targeted, with women and children making up a large proportion of victimstreated by MSF teams,” the report read.More than 2,600 people have been killedin Jonglei in the past 18 months, according to the United Nations.”They sethuts on fire and threw children in the fire,” said one 55-year-old womantreated by MSF, whose testimony of an attack by unidentified gunmen is quotedin the report.”Because I am old, I cannot run fast and they killed the childrenthat were with me,” she said. “If the child can run, they will shoot them withthe gun; if they are small and cannot run, they will kill them with a knife.”