Intercommunal clashes killed about 71 people in the South Sudanese town of Rumbek, in Lakes State, the caretaker government’s interim Ministry of Information said in a statement on Friday. Four soldiers were among the dead. Witnesses told AFP that a group of people from outside Rumbek tried to take control of the town and briefly succeeded before withdrawing when police and military reinforcements arrived.
The government said Rumbek is back under the control of government security forces and urged all communities to exercise maximum restraint and avoid retaliation. The violence lands in a fragile political moment: President Salva Kiir dissolved the transitional government on September 22, ending the 2018 power-sharing arrangement that halted a five-year civil war, and appointed a caretaker administration to steer the country toward its first-ever national elections. Intercommunal fighting has continued through it all, with 26 killed in a disputed border region on September 17 and at least 169 dead in an attack on a town in early March.