Refugees in South Sudan Suffer Attacks, Abductions, UN Says

(Bloomberg) -- Spreading violence in South Sudan has included attacks on a settlement of refugees from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo that forced 8,000 to flee, the United Nations said.

Unidentified armed groups have repeatedly entered Lasu settlement in the country’s southern Greater Equatoria region in September, assaulting residents and looting, the UN Refugee Agency said Thursday in a statement. At least one refugee was killed, another raped and two women abducted during the raids, at least some of which were committed by “armed men in uniform,” it said.

Before a new outbreak of violence in oil-producing South Sudan in early July, Lasu hosted more than 10,000 refugees, mostly from Congo, along with others from Sudan and the Central African Republic, according to the UN. A civil war that began in the world’s newest nation in late 2013 has left tens of thousands of people dead.

More than 1 million South Sudanese have now fled to neighboring nations while many others have been driven from their homes to other parts of the country. The U.S. on Thursday announced almost $133 million in humanitarian assistance to help those displaced, bringing its total aid funding to nearly $1.9 billion since the conflict began.

To contact the reporter on this story: Okech Francis in Juba at fokech@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Michael Gunn, Alastair Reed