51 killed in South Sudan clashes: Officials

In a battle between South Sudan’s military and militants led by David Yau Yau in the eastern state of Jonglei, South Sudan's largest state, on Sunday, 24 people, including 20 militants and four government troops, were killed, said South Sudanese military commander, Colonel Philip Aguer.
 
The army recaptured the town of Boma, near the border with Ethiopia, from the militants who had seized the town earlier this month, the military official noted.
 
South Sudan's military “restored law and order to Boma and chased away the rebels to the hills outside town,” Aguer said.
 
Elsewhere in the northeastern state of Upper Nile, cattle raiders suspected to be from Jonglei state killed 27 people early on Saturday, local officials said.
 
The assailants attacked the villagers at mid-night when people were asleep, said Commissioner Dak Tap, a local official.
 
    “The attackers killed 23 people on the spot and stole more than 2,000 cattle. In the morning, youth in the affected village pursued the raiders and in the ensuing exchange of fire four more people, including three rebels, were killed,” Tap added.
 
 
In July 2011, South Sudan voted to break away from Sudan following a two-decade civil war that killed about two million people in the East African country. But the new oil-rich nation, which is one of the least-developed countries in the world, has had to confront ethnic tensions and rebellions of its own.
 
Yau Yau rebelled against the government in Juba after he was defeated in the elections of April 2010. However, he accepted amnesty in June 2011, a month before South Sudan won independence from Sudan after decades of civil war.