Officials in Tonj North County of South Sudan's Warrap State said an Executive Director of the defunct Marial Lou county was shot and later succumbed on Thursday evening in what appears to be a revenge attack.

According to the officials, Angelo Dut Mangong, a member of the Luachjang community was shot in Marial town by armed youth from the Lou Paher community.

Armed youth from the Lou Paher of Tonj North and the Luachjang of Tonj East communities clashed on Tuesday and Wednesday resulting in the killing of seven people and 14 injuries from both sides. 

Mary Angara wek, a state lawmaker based in Marial Lou, told Radio Tamazuj on Friday that the armed youth were avenging their brothers killed early this week by youth from the Luachjang community.

"On Thursday evening when I heard gunshots, I came out to see and I found out that it is the Executive director that has been shot. The boys who shot the executive director had their two brothers killed in the fighting that took place two days ago, so they were coming to revenge, that is how the executive director was killed," she said.

According to her, the attackers are known but could not be arrested because they threatened to kill anyone who came close to them.

Mary Angara described the security situation as tense and appealed to both Luachjang and Lou community to restrain from further retaliatory attacks and killings.

"We have since time immemorial lived as brothers and sisters, if there are some problems between us, we should sit down and resolve them. I am appealing to all to stay peacefully with their brothers and sisters from other communities as sons and daughter from one mother, we don’t want problems or killing to continue," she appealed.

Bol Kuol Bol, the head of the security committee for Tonj North confirmed that the county official was targeted by armed youth from the Lou community because he comes from the Luachjang community.

Kuol said the security personnel in the area cannot handle the situation and called for intervention.

"The security situation could be bad because the Executive Director killed is from Luachjang and because our people hardly respect the government, they leave areas of their communal fighting and come to towns and government places. The current situation cannot be handled by the police. We have requested the army but up to now it has not come," he added.