South Sudan gunmen abduct 8 foreign and local workers: U.N

July 4, 2017 (JUBA) – Unknown gunmen abducted eight foreign and local workers outside a United Nations protection of civilian site in the South Sudanese capital, but released them two days later.

The U.N. mission in South Sudan said workers of a private company contracted to a non-governmental entity were seized on Friday while drilling water and released on Sunday.

Their release followed negotiations involving the country’s security services.

The abduction of aid workers depicts the level of insecurity aid workers in the young nation face while doing humanitarian work.

More than 80 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan’s civil war and millions of citizens displaced by the fighting in the war-torn nation, recent U.N figures show.

Over 200,000 people have sought shelter at the U.N due to the fighting in South Sudan.

South Sudan was plunged into conflict in December 2013 as the rivalry between Kiir and his then-Vice President, Riek Machar, turned into a civil war. The fighting, which has often been along ethnic lines, triggered Africa’s worst refugee crisis, with over three million people fleeing their home.

(ST)