Sixty-six killed in South Sudan

At least 66 people have been killed and hundreds injured during two days of fighting in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, during what the government says was an attempted coup d’état.

“So far we have lost seven soldiers who died while they were waiting for medical attention and a further 59 who were killed outside,” the director of Juba Military Hospital, Dr Ajak Bullen told the UN-backed Radio Miraya.

The under-secretary in the Ministry of Health Matur Makur Koriom said 26 people had been confirmed dead and 140 others injured at Juba Teaching Hospital following the fighting that broke out on Sunday night.

It was not immediately clear whether there was an overlap in the figures of the dead.

The Government of South Sudan said in a statement that 10 officials, most of them former ministers allied to alleged coup backer and former deputy president Dr Riek Machar, had been taken into custody.

Residents said calm had returned to Juba yesterday afternoon but a dawn-to-dusk curfew announced on Monday was in effect, and reports by Radio Tamazuj said three people had been killed after fighting broke out in Bo, about 190 kilometres north of the capital.

Electricity was restored at Juba Teaching Hospital on Tuesday and the facility converted into an emergency unit, Radio Miraya reported.

Doctors there treated more than 100 people for gunshot wounds and warned that they faced a shortage of blood. Some of the doctors gave their own blood to save lives but said supplies would run out on Tuesday night.

“The situation at the hospital is critically bad,” a source told Radio Tamazuj in Juba. He said the hospital had run out of supplies including syringes, gauze, bandages, and medicines although the operating theatre was full of patients awaiting surgery.

“The situation is terrible. Everybody is wounded in the head, in the chest,” the radio quoted the source as saying. “There are few doctors and nurses on duty owing to the fear of movement and the curfew imposed from 6pm. The mortuary is full. Sometimes people carry their relatives out, but it is full. All the wards are full.”

The hospital, the largest in the city, has no blood bank but family members donate to relatives if there is electricity to operate the laboratory.

Reported by Machel Amos and Risdel Kasasira in Kampala and agencies in Juba.