13 dead in tribal revenge attacks in S.Sudan: government

Almost one hundred people were killed in South Sudan’s troubled Jonglei state last week, with the government on Sunday reporting 13 more deaths as a cattle vendetta between two tribes grips the new nation.

"The attack killed around 13 and wounded four ... it happened at midnight (2100 GMT Saturday)", in a village near Waat, Nyirol county, Governor of Jonglei Kuol Manyang told AFP late Sunday.

He mentioned poor communication in the vast and underdeveloped state as the reason the attacks were not announced earlier.

The government reported another 81 people killed in retaliation attacks on the Lou Nuer tribe last week, after up to 8,000 rampaging youths attacked Murle areas, razing villages and leaving an unknown number that some estimate in the thousands dead.

Newly-independent South Sudan has declared Jonglei a national "disaster area" while the United Nations has said it will launch a "massive emergency" operation to help some 60,000 people affected by the violence.

The UN says that last year, violence between the two tribes left around 1,100 people dead and tens of thousands displaced in a series of cattle raids involving abductions of women and children.

Military spokesman Philip Aguer said on Sunday that the government sent 3,000 troops to Jonglei to quell the violence, and the UN has deployed 1,000, and the latest attack took place six kilometres (four miles) from an army garrison.

"Many troops at the army garrison there had gone to other affected areas", Minister of Information Barnaba Marial Benjamin said.

"It was a quick attack by night" that could not have been prevented by security forces, said Manyang.

"They came with kalashnikovs, spraying people and then going away," he added.

The lack of roads in a state the size of Bangladesh is hampering peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts and attacks are spreading to more remote villages.

Manyang said what is thought to be a small group of attackers had stolen many cows, which were recovered the next day.

On Sunday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated up to 80,000 heads of cattle were seized in the violence.

South Sudan seceded from the north in July after decades of civil war that left the country in ruins.

In a country where cows represent wealth, a dowry and often the sole property for over 80 percent of the population, local officials say that the tit-for-tat attacks and what the UN calls a "cycle of violence" is expected to continue.