Cattle raids claim dozens of lives in South Sudan

Jan 30, 2012, 11:47 GMT

Johannesburg - At least 76 people were killed by unknown armed gunmen in cattle raids in northern South Sudan, according to officials.

It was unclear who was behind the raids, in which children, women and elderly residents were killed, while hundreds of animals were stolen.

Speaking with the Paris-based Sudan Tribune newspaper, officials said the attacks in the remote Warrap State took place on Saturday.

Warrap lies just south of the oil-rich Abyei area, one of several regions at the heart of a dispute between Khartoum and newly independent South Sudan.

Rebels hostile to the southern government, and allegedly backed by Khartoum, were accused by South Sudanese officials of being behind the attack.

Despite a deal which allowed Juba to break away peacefully from the north last year, the border region remains poorly defined and the two countries have not yet agreed on how to share oil revenues.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon, while attending an African Union summit over the weekend, called for the two countries to reach a deal on their problems quickly, saying 'the longer the situation remains unresolved, the stronger the issues will get.'

South Sudan is also suffering from several violent inter-ethnic rivalries, with warriors from various groups trying to settle differences using weapons leftover from decades of civil war.

Hundreds of people have died in ethnic clashes in the world's newest state in recent months, with cattle and grazing areas often at the centre of the disputes.

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