Violence between two ethnic groups in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has raged for over a week, leaving hundreds wounded, many with gunshot wounds. Aid agencies fear that countless others are wounded or lost in the bush as fighting continues and civilians flee attackers.
Both of the surgical wards at Bor hospital are packed, and dozens of men and boys have flopped onto mattresses wedged between supplies in a store room, nursing gunshot wounds.
16-year-old Dut Kuoth marched with many other Lou Nuer from northern Jonglei to Pibor county to mete out their revenge on their rivals, the Murle. The groups have been caught in a worrying cycle of ethnic violence that claimed at least 1,000 lives last year.
In the last major flareup of violence, in January 2012, some 8,000 Lou Nuer and others descended on Murle villages, looting cattle, attacking women and children, massacring and burning.
Hundreds, or even thousands died, and hundreds more in northern Jonglei in a spate of smaller revenge attacks.
But the blood debt has not been paid, and a recent disarmament campaign marred by abuses by government security forces has now pushed many of the Murle into the arms of rebel leader David Yau Yau.
Kuoth says that deadly attacks by Yau Yau prompted men in his Lou Nuer village and many others to come south and release their grief through centuries-old violence made increasingly deadly by modern weaponry.
Dot Kuoth says they are fighting forces under the control of Yau Yau now. He says the Lou Nuer have captured Yau Yau’s military base and his heavy weapons. But Dot Kuoth says he was injured by a rocket propelled grenade.
On Tuesday, scores of wounded Lou Nuer hobbled or were carried off army helicopters at Bor airport, and the aircraft quickly took off again to go and pick up more.
But thousands more fighters are said to be weaving their way south, and to date there have been no Murle casualties arriving at Bor, with some at the state hospital saying that they would be not be welcome there.
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