Juba, Apr 13: The killers in the tragic ambush of UN peacekeepers in South Sudan that claimed the lives of five Indian Army personnel Tuesday not only outnumbered their target six times over but were also armed with sophisticated weapons, eyewitnesses said.
In comparison, the convoy of 35 UN peacekeepers from India was bogged down by some heavy boring equipment and unarmed technical personnel, numbering around a dozen, even as the soldiers did manage to push back their adversaries, the eyewitnesses added.
The convoy of 11 vehicles was returning from Bor, the capital of Jonglei state in the world's newest country - and Africa's 54th nation - after experts from Ruaha Drilling, an Indian infrastructure company, were being escorted back after spending a month executing a borewell in the difficult swampy conditions.
Ruaha is owned by Manohar Reddy Manda and Bose Reddy, entrepreneurs from Andhra Pradesh.
Besides UN-owned vehicles, four Ruaha vehicles in the middle of the convoy had been badly damaged, a company senior told this IANS columnist, requesting not to be named, as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
