Six Aid Workers Killed In An Ambush In South Sudan: Says UN
MEP: Six aid workers have been killed in an ambush in South Sudan, the UN said Sunday, the latest such attack in the country suffering a famine blamed on a brutal civil war.
It was the highest number of aid workers killed in a single incident since the country’s civil war began in December 2013, a U.N. statement said. At least 79 aid workers have been killed since then. This year, at least 12 have died and at least eight humanitarian convoys have been attacked.
The UN did not say who the victims were or what aid agency they worked for.
They were traveling between Juba, the capital, and the town of Pibor.
“I am appalled and outraged by the heinous murder of six courageous humanitarians in South Sudan,” Eugene Owusu, the UN humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, said in a statement.
“At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is entirely unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed,” Owusu added.
Some 100,000 people are suffering from the man-made famine in South Sudan and another million are not far off after a nasty stop-start three-year civil war in which starvation has become a battlefield tactic.
