Airstrike kills 19 in South Sudan as conflict with White Army intensifies

Just weeks after government troops withdrew from the east of the country following intense clashes with an ethnic militia, an airstrike by South Sudan’s air force killed at least 19 people in the area, residents reported.

The fighting in Nasir, near the Ethiopian border, between national forces and the White Army—a loosely organised militia of armed Nuer youths—raised fears of a potential resurgence of the 2013-2018 civil war, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The government has accused First Vice President Riek Machar’s party, which is largely Nuer, of working with the White Army. During the civil war, the militia fought alongside Machar’s forces against the predominantly Dinka troops loyal to President Salva Kiir. Machar’s party has denied any involvement.

A South Sudanese general was among around 27 soldiers killed on March 7 when a UN helicopter trying to evacuate them from Nasir came under attack.

South Sudan’s Information Minister Michael Makuei told journalists at a news conference the airforce bombed Nasir on Monday morning.

Kang Wan, a community leader in Nasir, said it happened late on Sunday night, and that of the 19 dead, 15 people were killed immediately, while the others later succumbed to their wounds. Another resident said they saw 16 bodies and that three others had died.“All of them they got burned, everything got burned,” Wan told Reuters by telephone.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said its hospital in nearby Ulang received three wounded patients from Nasir on Monday morning.“Two of them were declared dead on arrival due to the severe burns they had sustained,” MSF said in a statement, giving no further details.

Nasir County Commissioner James Gatluak Lew, who is allied to Machar, said the South Sudanese armed forces were likely seeking revenge for the helicopter attack. Last week Uganda said it had deployed special forces in South Sudan’s capital Juba to “secure it”.

The South Sudanese government at the time denied the presence of Ugandan troops in the country. However, Makuei said in a statement some Ugandan army units were in the country “to back up and support the (national army) according to their needs”.