3 WFP workers killed in attack on humanitarian convoy in South Sudan

Juba, 25 Mar Three local workers of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) were killed in South Sudan as a result of an attack by an armed group on a humanitarian convoy carrying food aid in the east of the country, the UN agency reported Friday. WFP said in a statement today that the attack was perpetrated on Thursday by unknown gunmen near Bor, the capital of Jonglei State. The United Nations agency urged the South Sudanese Government to arrest and prosecute those responsible for the aggression and to provide protection to humanitarian workers in the country, where such incidents against them have become commonplace. In October last year, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in South Sudan expressed its grave concern following the increase in cases of attacks on humanitarian workers, which amounted to some 174 cases during the previous four months. Last December, another local WFP worker was killed and one more was injured in an armed ambush in Jonglei, and at the end of last month another humanitarian convoy was assaulted and one of the blue helmets protecting him was shot. In 2021 alone, 591 such attacks were recorded in South Sudan, according to the United Nations mission in the country. The director of WFP in the African country, Adeyinka Badejo, warned in the statement that “the continuation of these attacks will force the World Food Programme to suspend its activities in the Jonglei metropolitan area until the situation stabilizes”. This latest attack comes at a time of special turmoil in South Sudan after the main armed opposition group has decided to abandon the control mechanisms of the peace agreement signed in 2018 due to delays in its implementation and further clashes between it and the Army. CHIEF asm-ar-ppa/pddp