Those killed included two UN civilians, four Kenyans affiliated to the contractor and one South Sudanese. Two others, both Indians construction staff, have been wounded too.
Eyewitnesses accessed by this IANS columnist, whose consulting work brings him to South Sudan fairly regularly, said that the Indian peacekeepers had progressed about 40 km from their emanating point.
At around 9 a.m., some 200 armed men waylaid them from one side of the road. Outnumbered and taken by surprise, the men managed to push back even though the attackers had within minutes covered the entire convoy with weapons like anti-tank guns.
Their valour has been appreciated by force commander Major General Dalai Johnson Sakyi, a two-star officer from Ghana, who flew in with Brigadier A. Mistry to the Indian camp, and Hilde F. Johnson, special envoy of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and head of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
(IANS New Delhi bureau adds: the bodies of the five peacekeepers - Lt. Col. Mahipal Singh, Naib Subedar Shiv Kumar Pal, Lance Naik Nand Kishore Joshi, Havaldar Bharat Sasmal and Havaldar Hira Lal - were brought to the Indian capital early Thursday).
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