Police in South Sudan declared a nighttime curfew on Friday, a day after anti-Sudanese protests degenerated into looting and violence in the capital of the chronically unstable country.
Three people were killed in protests late on Thursday, police said, following reports that 29 South Sudanese citizens had been killed in neighbouring Sudan earlier in the week.
Sudan’s army was accused of killing civilians after retaking the city of Wad Madani from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The two sides are fighting a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million since breaking out in April 2023.
AFP has not been able to independently verify that South Sudanese were among the dead, but videos spreading online helped spark the protests in South Sudan.
Police said they fired warning shots to stop the pillaging of Sudanese shops as the unrest spread in the capital, Juba, as well as the towns of Bor, Aweil and Wau.
Police spokesman Colonel John Kassara said in a statement that the Juba protests “resulted in the shooting and injury of seven people, and three persons were killed”.
He did not give details on who fired the shots.
An AFP journalist saw that several foreign-owned shops and restaurants in the Jebel and Munuki neighbourhoods of the capital had been looted and vandalised overnight.
Calm had been restored on Friday, the journalist saw, but the atmosphere was tense with a heavy police presence across the city.
“As a countermeasure, we have ordered for a curfew starting at 6:00 pm,” police chief Abraham Manyuat announced on state television as fresh protests broke out in the capital and other towns.
“This morning protesters came out in a big number. They came specifically to Custom and Konyo markets (which) contain two-thirds of food commodities,” he said.
“If these markets get looted or catch fire it will be disastrous and both citizens and government will face severe consequences, so we are protecting those markets with all we can.”
The UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) called for the return of calm and urged the country to continue showing its “generous spirit of hospitality” to Sudanese fleeing the fighting.
‘More dangerous’
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
It faces chronic instability, violence and extreme poverty, lately exacerbated by some of the worst flooding in decades and a huge influx of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan.
South Sudan’s army spokesman, Lul Ruai, told a press briefing at army headquarters that more than 600 Sudanese had been brought to the site for protection from the angry crowd.
An AFP journalist saw hundreds of people sitting on the ground.
South Sudan President Salva Kiir again urged restraint on Friday and for people to “refrain from retaliation”.
“It is our duty to offer protection and support to Sudanese refugees who fled the war in Sudan,” Kiir said in a statement.
He said he had asked Sudan for an investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable.
Kiir also said that he had directed the security forces “to ensure no one takes laws into their own hands” and to protect all Sudanese in South Sudan.
The United Nations human rights chief on Friday warned that the war in Sudan was becoming “more dangerous” for civilians, following reports from rights groups of army-allied militias carrying out ethnic-based attacks on minorities in Al-Jazira state.
