15 soldiers killed in a rebel attack in northern South Sudan

July 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –

At least 15 South Sudanese soldiers were killed in an attack by rebels in northern Unity state on Tuesday, authorities in Mayom County have confirmed.

The spokesman for the Mayom authorities, Wour Weah, has detailed that a South Sudanese Army convoy fell into an ambush between the towns of Thiebder and Kotong by rebels from the South Sudanese People’s Movement Army (SSPM/A), headed by Stephen Buay Rolnyang.

Thus, he has stated that the convoy was made up of three vehicles and added that he arrived in the area from the capital, Juba. Weah has pointed out that both military and civilians were traveling in the vehicles, according to the radio station Radio Tamazuj.

For his part, the SSPM/A spokesman, Luk Gattiek Gai, confirmed the group’s responsibility in the attack and estimated the number of military deaths at seven, while stressing that the convoy “was moving weapons and ammunition to launch an operation military” against the rebels.

“We were aware that these forces were coming to attack us,” he stressed, before ruling out the death of civilians in the attack. “The vehicles were full of soldiers. We did not see civilians because they were government vehicles that carried ammunition for operations,” she defended.

The incident is part of several clashes in the area between the Army and the SSPM/A, which on July 22 claimed responsibility for an attack on an administrative building in Mayom that left twelve dead, including the county commissioner.

South Sudan has a unity government that was launched after the materialization of the peace agreement signed in 2018 by the president, Salva Kiir, and the main rebel leader and now first vice president, Riek Machar. Among the main pending points is the unification of the security forces.

The South Sudanese Presidency announced in January 2020 that the signatories of the peace agreement had agreed to once again extend the transition period, this time until 2023, to give room for the application of the clauses of the pact, amid requests international to speed up the process.