AFP, NAIROBI: At least 25 people were massacred and 120 wounded when gunmen in army uniforms attacked then torched a UN camp that was sheltering civilians in South Sudan last month, the UN said Friday.
The updated toll comes two weeks after the two-day gun battle inside the camp in the northeastern town of Malakal, with a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) detailing the failure of peacekeepers to protect the civilians sheltering at the base.
Over 47,000 people lived in the camp, after fleeing for safety from a civil war that broke out in December 2013. The UN has said the attack was a possible war crime.
Reports of troops in government army uniforms storming the camp and “firing on civilians” were “credible”, OCHA said, contradicting initial UN claims that the fighting was between tribal “youths”.
“About 3,700 families’ shelters were destroyed or damaged during the fighting and fires, along with multiple humanitarian facilities, including clinics, water tankers, nutrition centres and schools,” OCHA reported.