UN: 140 dead in Sudan tribal conflicts

The United Nations humanitarian office in Sudan has confirmed an attack may have killed about 140 people in one of the most remote parts of southern Sudan.

Officials in semi-autonomous southern Sudan say they are deeply concerned about inter-tribal fighting in the Tonj East area in Warrap State over the past week.

A Deputy Governor of the State says that armed men from the Nuer tribe have attacked cattle keepers grazing cows in swamp lands, stealing as many as five thousand domestic animals and killing 139 people.

A surge of tribal violence in 2009 killed about 25 hundred people and forced 350 thousand to flee their homes in the south. The southern Sudan government has vowed to use all efforts to end tribal violence.

Food aid is offloaded from a United Nations helicopter in the southern Sudanese town of Akobo, 2009. (AFP/File/Peter Martell)