JUBA: At least 57 people, most of them women and children, were killed in tribal clashes on Wednesday in South Sudan's vast Jonglei state, the latest deaths in a cycle of ethnic violence displacing 60,000 people, the government said on Friday.
South Sudan declared independence from north Sudan in July under the terms of a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of civil war.
Its government is now struggling to control an underdeveloped territory roughly the size of France.
The country has been plagued by ethnic clashes over cattle, territory and blood feuds for decades but violence has risen, fuelled by a flood of weapons left over from the civil war and other conflicts.
Fighting between Lou Nuer and Murle groups broke out about two weeks ago in remote regions of Jonglei state, home to a largely-unexplored oil field operated by France's Total.
At least 57 people were killed in a fresh outbreak of fighting on Wednesday when armed Murle fighters attacked three Lou Nuer villages in Uror country in northern Jonglei state, said government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin.
"The government cannot control everything. It's a huge area ... Eleven men were killed, the rest were women and children," he said.
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