The Murle tribe of South Sudan launched a raid on Gambela on Sunday, January 8, 2017, killing 11 people and abducting more than 20 children from Ipud and Jale woredas, located 200km from the Ethiopia-South Sudan border, as reported by Wazema.
According to the head of Gambela Region’s Communications Bureau, as quoted in the report, the Murle tribe had previously kidnapped about 200 children and taken hundreds of cattle in 2016. The Ethiopian Defense Force successfully rescued many of the children, but 57 children are still missing. The head of the Bureau mentioned that both Agnuak and Nuer children were kidnapped, but all of the children who were returned happened to be from the Nuer tribe, which exacerbated tensions between the two tribes.
Wazema reported that the Murle tribe has a tradition of kidnapping children from other tribes and adopting them to maintain their ethnic group.
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