At least 30 people have been killed and 70 others wounded when armed assailants stormed a United Nations Mission (UNMISS) base in Jonglei state capital of Bor.
The armed attack took place Thursday when the armed youth approached the UN compound where thousands of people displaced by the current violence in the African country are sheltered and forced their way into mission.
Health workers were cited in local press reports as saying that the armed youth then opened fire and indiscriminately shot at people in the UN base, before being confronted by an Indian contingent of UN peacekeepers stationed at the compound.
Women and children are reported to be among the casualties.
Nearly 5,000 civilians are sheltering inside the UNMISS compound in Bor, one of the most bitterly contested regions in the four-month-long conflict splitting the country.
UNMISS said its forces returned fire – first firing warning shots and then taking part in a ferocious gun battle – before the assailants retreated.
The gunmen had initially approached the camp under the guise of peaceful demonstrators intending to present a petition to the UN, before opening fire and breaching the compound.
The sheltered civilians at the compound had fled into the base weeks ago amid brutal ethnic massacres in the world’s newest nation.
MFB/NN/HMV
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