Cattle raid in northern Unity State leaves 14, including children, dead

RUBKONA – At least 14 people, including six children, were killed and 23 others wounded when armed cattle raiders attacked a cattle camp in northern Unity State on Tuesday night, according to state authorities and local leaders.

The attack occurred at Oafra in Payangai village in Budang Payam of Rubkona County, approximately 50 kilometers north of the county administrative adquarters, Rubkona town.

Local sources said the assault began at around 10:00 p.m. and continued until approximately 11:00 p.m., leaving dozens of families displaced and an unknown number of cattle stolen.

Unity State Information Minister Nyakenya Johannes Keah said authorities had confirmed 14 deaths and 23 injuries, with the wounded receiving treatment at medical facilities in the oilfields area.

“At Oafra, in Payangai, of Budang Payam of Rubkona County, that is another part of Rubkona, criminals from Ruweng Administrative Area came and launched an attack at the cattle camps around there,” she told Sudans Post.

“So far we have confirmed that 14 people have been killed. That includes about six children, six men, a woman and one girl,” she added.

The minister said authorities were still collecting information from the scene and assessing the scale of livestock losses.

“And also like 23 other people are still receiving medical attention around oil field facilities. So that is the information we have so far, and also the commissioner is already at the scene, trying to restore calm. But the number of cattle, we have not confirmed,” she said.

Sudans Post has learned that one of the victims who was initially reported wounded later succumbed to injuries sustained during the attack, raising the death toll from 13 to 14.

Both said the victims were civilians from Unity State and alleged that the attackers came from neighboring Ruweng Administrative Area.

“I only have the number of the people that were killed in the cattle camp. That is civilians from Unity State. They were coming from Pariang in Ruweng Administrative Area,” she said.

Before the government updated the casualty figures, local cattle camp leader Riek Ter Pech had told Sudans Post that 13 people had been killed in the attack.

“Most of the victims are children and women,” Pech said, adding that the attackers approached from the directions of Aliny and Pariang in the neighboring Ruweng Administrative Area.

The chairman of the Leek Youth Association, Nen Kech, also condemned the attack in a statement posted on Facebook, saying 13 people had initially been confirmed dead and 22 wounded.

“It was exactly at around 10 p.m. when Payangai village in Budang Payam, north of Rubkona County, Unity State, came under attack,” Kech said.

He added that three of the attackers were reportedly killed during the violence and that they were wearing military uniforms. Sudans Post was unable to reach Ruweng authorities for comment at the time of this writing.

The attack occurred against the backdrop of longstanding tensions between communities in Unity State and the neighboring Ruweng Administrative Area over administrative boundaries, grazing land, and access to resources.

The dispute dates back to 2015 when President Salva Kiir divided South Sudan into tribal enclaves creating ethnic tensions between South Sudan’s two major ethnic communities, the Nuer and the Dinka.

During the restructuring, portions of northern Rubkona and Guit counties were separated from Unity State and incorporated into the newly created Ruweng State, now known as the Ruweng Administrative Area. The move linked the former counties of Pariang and Abiemnhom but remains a source of political and communal tension.

Aliny County, from whose direction some witnesses said the attackers approached, lies northeast of Rubkona County and was carved out of what was then Pariang County, as well as part of Rubkona’s northern land.

Northern Unity State also shares an international border with Sudan and has witnessed increasing insecurity linked to developments across the frontier.

In recent months, local officials and community leaders have reported attacks in northern parts of Unity State by Arab ethnic militias allied with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), raising fears among residents that Sudan’s ongoing conflict is contributing to instability along the border.

The latest raid is likely to heighten concerns among communities in northern Unity, where cattle raiding, intercommunal disputes, cross-border armed activity, and unresolved administrative tensions continue to threaten civilian populations.