At least three herdsmen were killed by armed attackers in Duk County of Jonglei State on Monday, local authorities said.
Duk Padiet Payam Administrator Peter Kuer told Radio Tamazuj that the assailants attacked the Pogonkuei cattle camp at about 11 am on Monday and killed three people.
“At about 11 am armed men attacked the youth who were grazing cattle in the outskirts of Pogonkuei cattle camp in Duk Padiet town killing 3 people and they made off with about 1000 head of cattle,” Kuer said. “Our youth were able to follow and fight the attackers the whole day and recovered the stolen cows.”
The local official however pointed out that the death toll may rise.
“The number of those killed may increase because there was a lot of fighting as our youth were trying to recover the cows. They succeeded in the recovery and are still on their way and we did not get the final report,” Kuer said.
Philip Thon Leek, a lawmaker representing Duk in the National Legislative Assembly, condemned the attack and called for the national government’s intervention in mitigating the increased frequency of cattle raids.
“I am calling on the national government to resolve this issue of cattle raids between Jonglei State and Greater Pibor once and for all. As lawmakers, we are supposed to focus on national issues but now our work is to report attacks on our people,” the legislator said.
For his part, Majak Daniel Tuor, the state police spokesperson, said they learned about the raid and subsequent recovery but that details about causalities remain scanty.