Red Cross searches for missing parents

Red Cross volunteers are trying to reconnect 150 young children with their missing parents after tens of thousands of residents of South Sudan ran into the bush while fleeing a massive wave of tribe-on-tribe violence, an official said yesterday.

Many of those parents, though, are feared to be dead.

Violence broke out late last month between two South Sudanese tribes in the town of Pibor, sending tens of thousands of residents into the surrounding countryside. The death toll is not known because officials cannot gain safe access to the region. One community leader believes the toll is in the hundreds.

Save The Children said yesterday that up to 25,000 women and children fled the violence and are living in the bush. The United Nations (UN) reported last week that 6,000 armed men were marching on Pibor.

"Children in the area already live in continual fear of violence and are often abducted in raids. If fighting continues, thousands more could be killed, maimed, abducted or recruited to fight," the group said.

The UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan estimated yesterday that the death toll could be in the hundreds.

Speaking via video link from South Sudan's capital, Juba, Lise Grande said she saw five corpses outside of Pibor.