NAIROBI (Reuters) - At least 16 people were killed in the South Sudanese town of Wau on Monday, said the United Nations, as witnesses said ethnic militiamen went house to house searching for people from other groups.

Streets were deserted as families hid inside, residents told Reuters by phone. Some reported seeing killings.

Witnesses said the militia members were aligned with the government in the country’s ethnically charged civil war. They accused army soldiers of blocking the main road to a civilian encampment protected by U.N. peacekeepers.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said two U.N. peacekeeping patrols had been sent to the area on Monday and more were expected to patrol on Tuesday. The U.N. peacekeeping mission is known as UNMISS.

“They saw 16 bodies of civilians in a hospital and at least 10 others were injured,” Dujarric told reporters in New York.

“Eighty-four people have arrived at the UNMISS protection of civilians site in Wau, while at least 3,000 people have reportedly moved to a site run by the Catholic church in town and those are mostly women and children,” he said.

South Sudan’s deputy army spokesperson, Colonel Santo Domic Chol, said fighting had first broken out during a mutiny by soldiers at the town’s prison. He was awaiting more information, he said.

The fighting followed an ambush that killed a brigadier general and a colonel in Wau state over the weekend, a rebel spokesman based outside the country said.

“This morning the government forces were retaliating against innocent Fertit people,” he said, referring to a local ethnic group.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it is flying a surgical team to Wau.

“The ICRC has received multiple requests to assist medical staff in Wau with patients wounded in the violence,” a spokesman said.

A staff member at Wau Teaching Hospital said all the bodies it had received appeared to be civilian and all had gunshot wounds.

Five residents, all of whom asked not to be named, described members of the president’s Dinka ethnic group searching for members of the local Luo and Fertit groups. The head of the military is also Dinka.

“We are still inside hiding,” said one man by telephone, speaking from a Wau neighborhood called Nazareth. “I have seen four dead bodies of my neighbors.”

“Armed militias are moving from house to house,” one resident said. “It is an ethnic crackdown.” Another said he had fled an attack that had killed many people, including his cousin.

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, fired his deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer. Fighting since then has often split the oil-producing country along ethnic lines and created a patchwork of armed factions.

The country is awash with weapons after decades of conflict with neighboring Sudan and local feuds over land.

BODIES

In another part of Wau, a resident saw two bodies near a feeding center and a couple killed beside the road as they tried to flee to a nearby civilian encampment protected by U.N. peacekeepers.

More than 200,000 people have taken refuge in such sites set up across the country after widespread ethnic killings, many by soldiers. Campaign groups have accused both sides of atrocities.

Two residents said soldiers had blocked off the road leading to the protected site in Wau.

“I and my two sisters tried to get a way to the UNMISS protection site, but we can’t because the road is blocked by government soldiers,” one woman said.

“I saw one woman together with her husband who was killed because they tried to run to UNMISS.”

The army’s Chol said the mutiny had broken out on Monday morning. “Some four prison soldiers in Wau prison decided to mutiny and shot at their own colleagues. They killed two,” he said.

He said there had been fighting in Wau state for the past three days but had no further details on Monday’s fighting, apart from the fact it was taking place along ethnic lines.

“The type of the rebellion which is taking place in Wau ... it is more or less tribal,” he said.

The 15,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission, which has a base in Wau, has not been able to stop the killing.

“We are aware of the situation in the town and we are looking into it,” U.N. spokesman Daniel Dickinson said.</s>No fewer than 16 civilians have been killed and ten others injured in South Sudan’s northwestern town of Wau following sporadic fighting between government-backed militia and local youth, the UN mission said Monday.The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said the fighting started after a number of government SPLA soldiers were killed in an ambush on Sunday in the south of Wau.“The Mission mounted two patrols into Wau on Monday and said it had observed the bodies of 16 civilians in a hospital. There were ten people who had been injured,” the UNMISS said in a statement.The UN mission said 84 people have arrived at the UN protection of civilian site, while an influx of at least 3,000 people into a Catholic church in the town, mostly women and children, has been reported.“The fighting follows the movement of SPLA troops, tanks and equipment towards the southwestern part of Wau late last week,” UNMISS said.South Sudan has been devastated by civil strife that broke out in December 2013. Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have been killed, with over 2 million displaced since then.A peace deal signed in August 2015 led to the formation of a transitional unity government, but was again shattered by fresh violence in July, 2016.</s>At least 16 people have been killed in South Sudan as militiamen targeted civilians based on their ethnicity.

Witnesses say the Dinka militiamen, aligned with South Sudan's government, went house to house Monday in the town of Wau searching for people from the local Luo and Fertit ethnic groups. Residents say streets were deserted Monday as families hid inside their homes.

The United Nations mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, said its workers saw "the bodies of 16 civilians in a hospital. There were 10 people who had been injured."

U.N. officials have repeatedly warned that South Sudan is at risk of genocide.

U.N. officials say the killings were in retaliation for a rebel attack on government forces in Wau state on Sunday that killed two officers.

UNMISS said about 3,000 people, mostly women and children, had fled to a Catholic Church in town. It said 84 people had sought protection in a civilian encampment protected by U.N. peacekeepers. Residents told reporters that army soldiers were blocking the main road to the encampment, preventing most people from reaching the site.

South Sudan has been beset by violence for more than three years because of a political rivalry between the young country's two leaders.

The power struggle between President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his former deputy, Riek Machar, a Nuer, broke out in December 2013, after the president accused Machar and 10 others of attempting a coup.

Fighting has split the country along ethnic lines, displaced more than two million people from their homes, and caused food shortages in many areas.</s>Sudan will close its recently reopened border with South Sudan once again if that country persists in its support for armed rebel groups, presidential aide Ibrahim Mahmoud said on Thursday.

Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir ordered the opening of his country's border with South Sudan in January for the first time since the south's secession in 2011, paving the way for better economic links between the two nations.

The threat to shut the border again comes just one day before peace talks are set to begin in Addis Ababa between the Sudanese government, the country's largest opposition party and several major armed rebel groups.

Khartoum accuses Juba, the capital of South Sudan, of backing a rebellion in its Darfur region and a separate but linked insurgency in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. South Sudan denies the allegations.

"If the South Sudan government does not refrain from supporting the rebels, we will be forced to close the border with the south once again," Mahmoud said on Thursday.

The border was closed in 2011 after the south seceded following a long civil war, taking with it three quarters of Sudan's oil, estimated by the U.S. Energy Information Administration at 5 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Bilateral relations have remained tense since 2011 as they failed to agree on borders and the status of several regions that both sides claim sovereignty over. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Gareth Jones)</s>Stoking tensions further, Sudan's cabinet said it would tighten restrictions on South Sudanese people living in its territory and prosecute any without proper papers, state media reported.

There was no immediate explanation of what prompted the announcements - though they came a day before Sudanese government officials were due to meet rebels who have been fighting along the long frontier.

"If the South Sudan government does not refrain from supporting the rebels, we will be forced to close the border with the south once again," presidential aide Ibrahim Mahmoud said.

Sudan regularly accuses its neighbour of backing insurgents in its Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions.

South Sudan, which split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war fuelled by ethnicity and oil, dismisses the allegations and accuses Khartoum of arming militias in its territory.

The position of the border, particularly in the contested Abyei area, has been a constant source of tension, as has the legal status of southerners left living in the north and vice versa.

The cabinet announcement said southerners in the north would be treated as foreigners when it came to education and healthcare.

The border, regularly crossed by traders and pastoralists, was closed after the 2011 split and only re-opened in January.

Sudan's opposition Umma party is also expected to attend Friday's talks in neighbouring Ethiopia.</s>At least 16 people have been killed in South Sudan as militiamen targeted civilians based on their ethnicity. Witnesses say the Dinka militiamen, aligned with South Sudan's government, went house to house Monday in the town of Wau searching for people from the local Luo and Fertit ethnic groups. Residents say streets were deserted Monday as families hid inside their homes. The United Nations mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, said its workers saw "the bodies of 16 civilians in a hospital. There were 10 people who had been injured."...
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• South Africa Says It Did Not Have to Arrest Sudan's Al-Bashir VOA Africa (3 days ago) - South Africa is insisting to International Criminal Court judges that it did not have to...
• Matthew Davies: Can South Africa ditch its new junk status?</s>At least 16 killed in fighting in South Sudan second city



 Juba, South Sudan | AFP | At least 16 civilians were killed in fighting Monday between government troops and rebels in South Sudan’s second-largest city Wau, the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNMISS) said in a statement.

The violence stemmed from an ambush Sunday of government troops near the city, leading to clashes in the city the following day, UNMISS said.

“The Mission mounted two patrols into Wau on Monday and said it had observed the bodies of 16 civilians in a hospital. There were ten people who had been injured,” the statement said.

Wau is located in a region that has repeatedly changed hands between government troops and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar since the country descended into civil war in 2013.

The city itself has remained under the control of forces loyal to Machar’s arch-enemy President Salva Kiir throughout.

UNMISS said troops, tanks and equipment from the SPLA national army had moved towards areas controlled by the rebels in the south-western part of Wau late last week.

At least 3,000 people — mostly women and children — sought shelter in a Catholic church, while another 84 had sought refuge at an UNMISS Protection of Civilians site.

Civilians who spoke to AFP described targeted killings in the city some 650 kilometres (404 miles) from the capital Juba.

“The (people) who came are reporting to us that there are SPLA soldiers in the residential areas,” said Moses Peter, a priest, who confirmed that up to 3,000 people were sheltering in his church.

“They are shooting and are targeting certain groups of people and they are even looting houses.”

Local resident Tibur Erynio, 41, said a tally of the dead from his neighbours stood at 18, most of them from minority ethnic groups the Jur and Balanda.

The civilians were “killed because they are suspected of supporting rebels,” said Erynio, adding that this was not true.

Erynio said shops and markets in the city’s southern half were closed and the government had told people to stay indoors.

“You can only see people are moving, running either to the church for protection” or to a UN peacekeeping compound, he said.

One local resident, who asked not to be named, told AFP he had found his brother “lying in blood after he was shot”, and had counted five other dead bodies.

Another, who gave her name as Mary Joseph said: “we saw three people lying dead in different places.”

The International Committee for the Red Cross said it was rushing surgical teams to the city to assist the wounded.

The military and rebels gave conflicting accounts of the violence.

Military spokesman Colonel Santo Domic Chol said the fighting started as government troops were trying to rout rebels from strongholds in the countryside.

Forces loyal to Machar took cover among civilians when the skirmishes reached Wau town on Monday, Domic said.

Four prison guards were killed in the fighting, Domic said, without elaborating.

A spokesman for the rebels William Gatjiath Deng said the fighting stemmed from an ambush laid by the rebels outside of Wau on Sunday that left 35 soldiers from a government-aligned militia dead.

The surviving pro-regime forces returned to Wau, where Deng said they killed 50 civilians in “house-to-house” raids.

Both accounts were impossible to verify.

Deng said the troops were from the same militia responsible for fighting last week in the southern town of Pajok that forced 6,000 people to flee across the border to Uganda.

South Sudan’s leaders fought for decades for independence, but once they got it in 2011, civil war erupted in 2013 out of a power struggle between Kiir and his former deputy Machar.

At least 1.7 million people have fled the country because of the war, and 1.9 million are internally displaced.

The war has also created a man-made famine, exacerbating a dire humanitarian crisis.

The post At least 16 killed in fighting in South Sudan second city appeared first on The Independent Uganda:.

This post was syndicated from The Independent Uganda:. Click here to read the full text on the original website.

Also, Like us on facebook</s>At least 16 civilians have lost their lives and several others sustained injuries in clashes between government troops and armed rebel forces in South Sudan, official reports say, PressTV reported.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a statement that the fighting had stemmed from a Sunday ambush of the South Sudanese government troops near the country’s second largest city of Wau and had led to clashes the following day.

"The Mission mounted two patrols into Wau on Monday and said it had observed the bodies of 16 civilians in a hospital. There were ten people who had been injured," the statement said.

Reports said at least 3,000 residents of Wau, mostly women and children, had sought shelter in a Catholic church, while another 84 took refuge at a UN protection site to escape the killings.

Wau is located in a region that has repeatedly changed hands between government troops and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar since the country plunged into civil war in 2013.

The city is some 650 kilometers from the capital Juba.

UNMISS noted that troops, tanks and equipment from Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had been deployed to areas controlled by the rebels in the southwestern part of Wau last week.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011, but descended into a bloody civil war in December 2013, when President Salva Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup against him. The two sides then got involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the impoverished country along ethnic lines between the rival communities of Dinka and Nuer, killing thousands of people.

A peace agreement convinced Machar to return to Juba, but a new wave of fighting broke out again in the African country in July 2016.

Machar is currently in exile in South Africa after fleeing the new spate of violence. Numerous international attempts to reach a truce between the warring sides have failed.

The persisting conflict has so far killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions of others from their homes, divided much of the population along ethnic lines and crippled agriculture. According to the United Nations, the impoverished country is also facing famine.</s>Sudan has informed South Sudan that it has shut an oil pipeline that is used to transport crude from the South's oilfields for export, a senior company official said on Sunday.

"We were informed that the pipeline has now been shut. We were in production for nearly a month and the oil has already reached the port of Sudan," Elhag John Simasona, chairman and CEO of PetroSouth Sudan, told Reuters.

Sudan's president had ordered a stoppage of all South Sudan's oil exports from Sunday, accusing his land-locked neighbour of backing rebels on his territory, and bringing the foes back to the brink of confrontation after months of relative peace.</s>Sudan will allow the first oil from South Sudan that has reached Port Sudan to be exported, but Khartoum will take its share, a Sudanese minister said on Sunday.

Chinese state-firm CNPC last week sold 1.2 million barrels of oil flowing from South Sudan's fields through a Sudanese pipeline to Sudan's export port.

"We won't confiscate this oil because it does not belong to South Sudan only but also to the (oil) companies so it will be exported. We'll take our share," Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman told reporters.

Sudan, whose president had ordered a stoppage of all South Sudan's oil exports from Sunday, is entitled to pipeline fees for the use of its facilities from the landlocked South.
Government-aligned militias kill 16 people during a raid in Wau, South Sudan.