South Sudan: Clashes in Raga town between government forces and the main rebel group kill at least 14 people
At least 14 people were killed in the South Sudanese town of Raga when fighting erupted between government forces and the main rebel group, a rebel spokesman said on Saturday, within a week of violence in neighbouring Wau state that killed 16.
The rebels, the main force fighting the government in the famine-hit nation’s civil war, had briefly occupied the northwestern town, near the border with Sudan and Central African Republic, before withdrawing to nearby bases to prepare for a counter-attack.
“For the last two days the government bombed our areas around Raga and yesterday our forces decided to go and raid Raga,” opposition spokesman Lam Paul Gabriel Lam said by phone.
Around 14 people were counted killed but many are injured … we had one soldier killed with some injuries,” he told Reuters.