From Today's News - This is in the area where I spent three weeks this summer.

People from the Dinka tribe look at the camera in Juba, southern Sudan, where the peace talks regarding the Lord's Resistance Army is taking place.Unknown gunmen killed at least 38 civilians in a string of attacks in southern Sudan, regional government officials said on Thursday. REUTERS/Jiro Ose


Gunmen kill at least 38 in south Sudan-officials

By Kamilo Tafeng

JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen killed at least 38 civilians in a string of attacks in southern Sudan, regional government officials said on Thursday.
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The south is hosting stop-start peace talks between neighbouring Uganda's government and Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who have long been accused of committing atrocities against villagers in lawless parts of the remote region.

Uganda's military said it suspected the LRA was behind Wednesday's killings, but the rebels denied it.

Southern Sudan's Interior Minister Paul Mayom Akec told a news conference armed men killed 38 people, including women and children, and burnt cars in several attacks on roads between the southern capital Juba and the eastern banks of the Nile.

"It is not my immediate desire to talk about the identity of the attackers ... no matter whoever they can be, in order for us not to jeopardise the ongoing peace talks," Akec said.

South Sudanese Major-General Wilson Deng Kuoirot, who heads the talks' independent monitoring team, said 41 people had been killed in ambushes witnesses told him were carried out by young, dreadlocked men and women in "shabby-looking" fatigues.

"Our forces are doing everything possible to find out who is behind these killings," he told Reuters. The victims were mostly shot in the head and left in their charred vehicles, he said.

A Ugandan military spokesman in Kampala, Major Felix Kulayigye, said he suspected the LRA launched the attacks.

"We have known all along the people we are dealing with here are simply thugs. Now the world can see," he said by telephone.

Negotiations have stalled in recent days as both Uganda's military and the LRA accused each other of breaking a landmark truce signed in August that aimed to end 20 years of war.

An LRA spokesman in Juba, Godfrey Ayoo, denied they were behind the attacks: "We are not the ones who did it," he said.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was due in Juba this weekend to meet mediators, whose efforts had been hailed as the best chance of ending one of Africa's longest conflicts.

Two decades of fighting have killed tens of thousands and uprooted nearly 2 million more in northern Uganda.

The LRA, which was once supported by the Khartoum government as a proxy force against its own rebels, set up bases in the south in the mid-1990s, from where they staged raids into northern Uganda and terrorised local Sudanese communities.

The Juba talks -- the latest in many attempts to end the LRA insurgency -- were plagued from the start by profound mistrust on both sides, which spiked earlier this week with the military and rebels both accusing the other of attacks.

A U.N. spokeswoman in Khartoum confirmed ambushes on two roads around Juba on Wednesday, but had no immediate information about casualties. A U.N. bulletin said all road movement was suspended around Juba for the next 48 hours.

(Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in Khartoum, Francis Kwera in Juba and Daniel Wallis in Nairobi)

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Last updated: 19-Oct-06 19:36 BST