Tribal clashes

The whir of rotors from the United Nations helicopter is a welcome sound for about 3,000 hungry people who have gathered in this town, which is inaccessible by road. The helicopter is bringing the first substantial food many have seen in the two weeks since fleeing into the bush after an explosion of ethnic violence.

Like many people waiting here in the blistering mid-day sun, Ismiah James has been surviving on wild fruits since she fled her village after it was attacked by members of the Lou Nuer tribe.

"We were just sitting at home and then we were attacked," she said. "These Nuer guys came in with machetes and started cutting people, so everybody started running."

James is one of about 60,000 members of the Murle ethnic group who were displaced after their communities were attacked in late December and early January. Government and UN investigators are still counting bodies in Pibor county, a remote area of Jongeli state.

And the death toll is rising as Murle youth launch smaller scale retaliatory attacks. On Monday, for example, a Lou Nuer community in Duk Padiet was attacked and 47 people were killed according to the local member of Parliament, Philip Thon Leek Deng. Most victims were "children and elderly people," he told reporters in Juba, South Sudan's capital.

Ethnic strife

Jonglei state, which borders Ethiopia, has been wracked by ethnic violence over the past year. The UN says 1,000 people died in clashes between the Murle and the Lou Nuer in the first half of 2011 alone.

After an August attack by Murle youth killed about 600 people, the Sudan Council of Churches initiated a peace process that brought tribal leaders on both sides together to air their grievances. The process was meant to culminate in a meeting where leaders from both groups would sign a peace agreement. But the talks broke down and by mid-December UN aerial patrols were reporting that at least 6,000 armed Lou Nuer youth were marching toward Pibor.

Representatives of the armed movement called themselves the "White Army" and issued public statement vowing to "wipe the Murle of the face of the earth." As they approached Pibor, the UN advised people to flee their homes. The UN dispatched peacekeepers, and the government sent soldiers to the area but not in sufficient numbers to prevent the advance.

Horrific stories from survivors have emerged in the aftermath of the assault.

In a clinic in Pibor town, the county capital, nine-year-old Ngathim lay on a bed with a bandage around one of her small legs where she had been shot. Her father, Mangiro, said his wife and his other children were killed as they fled their village.

"The next day we found her mother and she was dead and the child was still alive and we carried her here," he said.

International concerns

This clinic, which is run by Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF), is the only medical facility in the county and it serves 160,000 people. It too was targeted by the marauding Lou Nuer youth who looted its pharmacy and destroyed a laboratory. MSF quickly got the clinic operational again and it has been receiving patients with diseases like malaria, as well as gunshot wounds.

"We are very worried about the medical needs of the people who are still in the bush," said Karel Janssens of MSF. "We hear from patients and our staff that there are still many wounded in the bush, but as long as we don't see their direct medical needs it is difficult to answer to that."

The UN's World Food Program (WFP) is warning of massive hunger that will compound the severe health situation unless it is able to deliver food by air to tens of thousands of people. Chris Nikoi, WFP's South Sudan country director, appealed to the international community to provide money to pay for helicopters to transport aid to areas inaccessible by road.

"These people have lost everything," he told reporters in Gumuruk. "The international community needs to step in and provide humanitarian organizations the resources we need to help people."

Author: Jared Ferrie, Gumuruk, South Sudan
Editor: Rob Mudge