JUBA, Sudan: Thirteen people have been killed in clashes in south Sudan's troubled Mvolo county area, the latest in a wave of violence between rival ethnic groups that has forced 34,000 to flee their homes, officials said Thursday. “There was more fighting in Mvolo County between communities in which 13 people were killed,” said Joseph Bakasoro, Governor of Western Equatoria state, who said the clashes took place Tuesday. Fighting along the cattle-herding border region between the southern states of Western Equatoria and Lakes first broke out in February. A second wave of clashes erupted in mid-March after a motorcycle driver was killed in an ambush, sparking tit-for-tat reprisal raids between the Dinka Atuot and the Beli ethnic groups. A United Nations' humanitarian assessment report released earlier this week estimates that more than 34,000 people have been displaced since the intermittent clashes first erupted in mid-February. “Fighting first broke out on Feb. 9-10, followed by a second wave of fighting from March 9 in the eastern part of Mvolo County,” the report said. The latest clashes happened as meetings took place between the governors of the two states to try to resolve the violence. “We came up with a number of resolutions, including the setting up of a combined neutral force from both states to return the security situation to normal,” said Bakasoro. Meanwhile, a Gaza-based MP told a news website Thursday that the airstrike which killed two people in Sudan targeted a top Hamas leader who escaped unharmed. Hamas MP Ismail Al-Ashqar told the Gaza-based Safa news agency his nephew Abdel Latif Al-Ashqar, whom he described as a “big military leader” within the group's armed wing, was present at the time of the attack but survived. Al-Ashqar did not respond to calls to confirm the report, and Hamas officials were not immediately available to comment on the claim which came two days after an unidentified plane fired a missile at a small car driving between the airport and Port Sudan, killing both passengers. Sudan's police however said Thursday that the two people killed in the airstrike were Sudanese, denying reports that the senior official of the Palestinian movement Hamas was targeted.
