Both sides in the battle for Bentiu last week suffered heavy casualties, according to sources, though the details of the losses are still unclear.
SPLA-IO and SPLA-Juba, the two factions fighting for power in South Sudan, clashed from Monday to Thursday last week in north-central Unity State, after SPLA-IO launched attacks to take the state capital.
About 50 seriously wounded soldiers from the SPLA-Juba side arrived to Juba for medical treatment on Thursday, 30 October, and were received by Presidential Advisor Tut Gatluak and Unity State Caretaker Governor Joseph Monytuil.
In Bentiu itself, the medical organization MSF said it was treating 12 people with “gunshot wounds and related injuries” since fighting started, without specifying whether any of the wounded were soldiers from either faction.
Dr. Erna Rijnierse, currently working for MSF in Unity State said, “We’ve carried out nine surgical interventions. Several patients arrived in a critical condition, including a pregnant woman, who had a gunshot injury to the chest. We inserted a chest tube and for the moment, she and her unborn baby are stable.”
“One nine-year old boy was shot in the chest and he died upon arrival at our hospital,” he added.
Media in South Sudan have mostly avoided reporting on war casualties – the numbers of dead and wounded owing to the civil conflict. Radio Tamazuj is informed that soldiers wounded in clashes in Wangkai last Wednesday were taken to Agok and Turalei, but radio stations there did not report on these casualties.
Reports have also been lacking on the medical conditions for the wounded, their challenges after being discharged, as well as the situation of the widows of the dead.
Neither side in the ongoing civil war officially discloses the numbers of casualties suffered by its own forces. However, high-level sources on the SPLA-Juba side acknowledged significant losses in the Bentiu fighting, with one source saying at least 100 of their troops died.
A security source on the SPLA-Juba side also claimed that at least 375 SPLA-IO fighters were killed, including 175 counted in Bentiu and 200 in its twin town Rubkona.
File photo
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