Six South Sudanese children killed in an explosion
KAMPALA, Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) –Six South Sudanese children were killed and 11 others injured while playing with an explosive device in Maji II Refugee Settlement in Uganda’s Adjumani district.
According to Wilson Manyok, the chairperson of South Sudanese Refugees in Northern Uganda, the explosion killed six children on the spot and two others succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. He said the rest remain in critical condition in Adjumani hospital.
“Some children in Maji II Refugee Settlement went to play beside the hillside and they found an explosive, started playing with it, and cut it with a panga and it exploded. The explosion killed six children on the spot and injured another eleven. The eleven injured children were taken to hospital but unfortunately, two of them died from the injuries they sustained. Many of those admitted in the hospital are still in critical condition,” he said.
Manyok said the children were aged between 5 and 11 years.
Recently in the same district, there was another explosion that injured two people from both the refugee and host community.
SEPARATELY, gunmen have abducted four women and an 8-year-old boy in Ayod County of SOUTH SUDAN’s Jonglei State, local officials and police said.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj, Albino Gatkek, the county’s acting commissioner said the women and the child were abducted along the Ayod-Uror road.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abductions, though communities in greater Jonglei have for a long time been fighting over child abductions and cattle raids.
Last month, at least 10 women abducted in Jonglei’s Duk County were rescued from their adductors. — NNN-AGENCIES