During the ethnic massacre carried out in Bor last Thursday, gunmen demanded that aid workers caught in the violence leave behind a group of women and children with whom they were hiding.

Armed men including soldiers on the morning of 17 April overran the perimeter of the UN base in Bor where 5,100 ethnic Nuers had sought protection.

Most of the population of the camp that was attacked were women and children. Sixty (60) or more people were killed, including some of the attackers.

A team of Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), a non-governmental organization that was active inside the camp since before the attack, was caught up in the “sudden chaos of the attack.”

In a statement on its Facebook page, the organization disclosed, “On three separate occasions men with guns approached the NP team who were sheltering together with the women and children in a tukul (mud hut).”

“The men with guns demanded the NP team leave the women and children to be killed.”

The statement adds that the aid workers “saved the lives of those women and children by refusing to leave them and repeatedly clarifying their role and identities as humanitarian workers.”

“When the attack ended, the team then worked tirelessly into the night collecting the wounded, verifying deaths and working together with partner organizations to organize medical evacuations to Juba,” explained the organization.

According to a recent statement by UNICEF, the exact number of children killed in the Bor attack is ‘not yet known', but they were among the casualties, the UN agency confirmed.

“Utterly defenseless children were attacked in a place where they should have felt safe,” said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF Representative in South Sudan. “The trauma for children under such circumstances is indescribable,” he added.

NP also stated that it had assisted a wounded one year old child whose mother was killed in the attack.

The killing at the Bor site was finally halted when armed UN peacekeepers drove back the attackers, some of whom were also killed.

Since the attack nearly a week ago, the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has declined to provide a figure for the number of victims.

Conflicting casualty reports in the media have to do in part with the differences in how the numbers are tallied, whether they include only number of the victims from the Nuer community found dead inside the UN base, or also those found dead outside having fled to the bush, and whether the slain attackers are also counted.

Photo: A makeshift primary school for students at the UNMISS displaced persons camp in Bor, before the attack (UNMISS/Mihad Abdalla)

Related coverage:

Armed youth, uniformed gunmen attack UN camp in Bor killing 60 (17 Apr.)

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