S. Sudan minister injured in attack

South Sudan Minister for Agriculture Dr Samson Kwaje has been evacuated to Nairobi for treatment after his car fell into an ambush of assassins on Sunday evening.

A vehicle carrying Dr Kwaje was ambushed just after he had given a speech encouraging people in Central Equatoria State to take part in national elections set for 2010, said officials.

The minister was shot and five people killed, the south’s Internal Affairs Minister Gier Chuang Aloung told Reuters.

Dr Kwaje is currently admitted at the Nairobi Hospital and his condition is stable.

Meanwhile, a tribal cattle raid this week left 47 dead in south Sudan, an army spokesman said, the latest in a cycle of fatal clashes between pastoralists.

Armed men from the Mundari ethnic group on Monday launched simultaneous attacks on two villages that belong to the Dinka Aliap tribe, part of the south’s largest ethnic group, southern army spokesman Kuol Deim Kuol told Reuters yesterday.

There has been a sharp increase this year in tribal fighting that has killed almost 2,000 people, adding to tensions at a sensitive period for implementing the 2005 north-south peace deal.