Gunmen in South Sudan attacked a long-distance bus on a major road south of Juba, leaving at least one passenger dead and several others suspected to have been kidnapped, according to the army.
The attack occurred on Tuesday morning, targeting a passenger vehicle en route to Kampala, Uganda’s capital.
Photos from the scene show black smoke billowing into the sky as flames engulf the bus’s interior.
Despite a peace agreement aimed at ending South Sudan’s prolonged civil war, large parts of the country remain unstable.
Eight people were injured, and one person, a Ugandan man, was killed, according to army spokesman Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, who spoke to the BBC. He added that seven more people are missing and may have been abducted.
Gen. Koang blamed the National Salvation Front (NAS), a rebel group, for the attack, which occurred 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital. The NAS, led by former deputy chief of staff Gen. Thomas Cirilo Swaka, operates in areas south of Juba and other parts of Central Equatoria State.
NAS has not yet responded to the attack, and it has consistently refused to sign the 2018 peace agreement.
According to Gen. Koang, soldiers dispatched to the scene were able to repel the attackers, a statement he also made earlier to Radio Tamazuj.
The Juba-Nimule road, which connects the capital with the southern border town, has seen multiple violent incidents.
In August 2022, 11 passengers, both South Sudanese and Ugandan, were killed and several others injured when their vehicle was ambushed by unidentified gunmen.
A year earlier, two South Sudanese Catholic nuns were also killed on the same road while returning to Juba.