Six killed in road ambush in South Sudan

Jan 5, 2006 (JUBA) — Six people were killed and 10 wounded after an unknown group attacked them on the road between Juba and Nimule in southern Sudan on Jan. 2, an officer in the south Sudan army said on Friday.

Major General Bior Awad of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), said that three people died in the attack itself and three died in hospital later from their injuries.

He said the attacks were probably the work of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the Ugandan rebel group which has been active in southern Sudan for many years but which has started peace talks with the Ugandan government.

“There is a likelihood that these attacks were carried out by the LRA”, Bior told Reuters by telephone. But there were other armed groups in that area, he said.

Juba is the capital of southern Sudan and Nimule is on the Ugandan border 150 km (90 miles) to the south.

“It is very strange for the LRA to continue killing our people when we are trying to bring peace through the negotiations,” he added.

Bior said there have been two attacks on Ugandan military vehicles in the past week on the same road corridor. Two people were injured in an attack on Dec. 30 and three soldiers were wounded in one on Jan. 1 near the junction with the road to Kit. Kit is to the east of the Nimule-Juba road.

When the SPLA searched the area around the site of the Jan. 1 ambush they found eight bodies in the bush, he said.

The victims may have been abducted by the group responsible for the attack but it was not clear to SPLA intelligence on what day these eight people had been killed, he added.

(Reuters)