Unidentified gunmen shot dead two people in an apparent targeted killing late on Friday in a village south of Thiet and north of Tonj town.
No group has come out to claim responsibility of the killing of the people in a village which has been in turmoil since the beginning of the year in what police and local authorities say it is politically engineered communal violence by politicians from the area opposed to the incumbent governor, Akec Tong Aleu.
Tonj is the capital of the newly established Tonj State, created when Salva Kiir issued a presidential order dividing his native Warrap State into three separate states. Akec, who is currently visiting Juba, announced last week that security situation was under control.
A local police officer said in an interview on Saturday, “Masked gunmen came at around 11:30 p.m. and called the local administrator by name and ordered him out of his house. They shot at him and he died.”
“After that they moved to another nearby house and also shot another person,” he said, adding that three of the unidentified gunmen wore either police or army uniforms.
While it was not immediately clear who the gunmen were, local people and authorities have in the past reported a number of apparently targeted killings.
File photo: Akec Tong