The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that three aid workers and 11 civilians were killed in January in attacks by gunmen in South Sudan.
In early January, three South Sudanese aid workers who were helping others paid the highest price with their lives, OCHA's Chief of Mission Peter Van der Auweraert said in a statement.
On Jan 2, two of the aid workers became the victims of an attack by armed men, which left others dead in a village in the oil-rich Abyei administrative area, the UN body said.
Abyei's spokesman affirmed that 14 people, including women and children, died in the attack, which attributed to youths from neighbouring Twic County.
The disputed region, under UN protection, has been on the border between Sudan and South Sudan since the latter declared independence in 2011.
The death of the third aid worker occurred the same week while monitoring humanitarian supplies in the east-central state of Jonglei, in addition to the nine killed last year and five in 2021.
Since independence in 2011, South Sudan has been plagued by crises, including a five-year civil war between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Vice President Riek Machar, with an estimated 400,000 deaths and millions displaced.
In September 2018, the war officially ended with a peace agreement stipulating the principle of power-sharing. But, this agreement has not been implemented to a large extent after more than two years of the formation of a national unity government that included President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar.
