[Juba, South Sudan, TCT] – On Sunday, a grenade explosion killed five children in South Sudan’s former Eastern Equatoria state, an official said.
Daniel Justin, a South Sudan police spokesman, confirmed to TCT by phone on Monday that the incident occurred in a residential area in Torit at around 3: pm local time when the children were playing with an unexploded ordinance near a kitchen.
“When it blasted, three children died on the spot and the other two were rushed to the civil hospital in Torit, capital of the Imatong State, where they later passed on,” said Justin.
The police spokesman also said,among the deceased were two girls and three boys, between the age of two to five years old.
He also revealed that the same incident occurred last month killing eight children and leaving dozens wounded in Jonglei state.
In 2015, a grenade outburst also killed four children and wounded thirty two (32) others when unknown assailants detonated a hand grenade in Torit town.
Decades of conflict coupled by the ongoing conflict, have littered explosive hazards and ninty million square meters are thought to be contaminated by such hazards in the country, according to UN agency for mine action in South Sudan. The agency said, in 2017 it coordinates up to 48 mine action teams with additional risk teams and cleared and released 1.187 million square meters of land back to the people of South Sudan. The organization also said it has destroyed 4,422,656 explosive devices including 37,764 unexploded mines.