SPLA soldiers and their militia attacked a food distribution in Dablual village in a rebel held part of Mayendit county of South Sudan’s Unity state on Monday.
The attack took place two days after the World Food Programme delivered 270 metric tonnes of food to Dablual, according to Associated Press news agency. The delivery was the first in two months in the area. Local relief commissioner John Riek said the soldiers burned the area “completely.”
“It’s serious,” Riek said. “People are going to die because of hunger.”
Riek said some 35,000 civilians fled into the bush, including residents of the village plus about 5,000 people who had been attacked elsewhere and were seeking shelter at the village. Mayendit town, the county capital, was attacked by SPLA Division 6 from Lakes State in May.
Before the attack, Dablual was beginning to return to normal with the food drop. In a visit last Saturday during the food drop, children were seen playing with wheelbarrows in the town and people were preparing to collect some small harvests to supplement the WFP food.
Dablual had been attacked twice before by SPLA Division 4 forces coming from Koch county in June. According to displaced person Carbino Mean, interviewed in Dablual on Saturday, SPLA soldiers abducted his wife and many other women to use as forced laborers carrying soldiers’ loot.
Mean described armored vehicles used by the soldiers from Division 4 which could cross both land and water, saying he had not seen them before.
Another man in Dablual, James Gatmai Yoak, said his house was burned during those earlier attacks. He said while he had grown some maize, lack of rain meant the harvest would be poor and would run out fast.
A third resident, Yoach Deng, also had his home and cattle shelter burned during a previous attack. He said his family of eight now shelters in a straw shack and is eating leaves because there is so little food.
Among the displaced people in Dablual before the attack were three children, siblings aged nine, six, and four who had been separated from their parents during an earlier attack on the village of Pabruong. They said their father was killed and their mother ran in a different direction. Child protection officers accompanying the food drop said the children showed signs of severe mental trauma.
Radio Tamazuj photos: Dablual and its residents during the food distribution before Monday’s attack