23, 2026. Fighters accused of backing South Sudan's government lured civilians from their homes in the village of Pankor, in Ayod County, with an announcement that they were registering people for food aid, then opened fire after gathering them in a traditional luak, according to two survivors who spoke to AP after the attack. The survivors said the gunmen arrived in pickup trucks, used a loudspeaker to call residents out and bound several men before shooting into the group. Women and children were among the dead.
The casualty total remains disputed. The two survivors said 22 people were killed and several others wounded, while James Chuol Jiek, the government-appointed county commissioner, said 16 people died. AP said it could not independently verify either count. Jiek confirmed that more than a dozen victims, mostly women and children, had been killed, but rejected the claim that the victims had been tricked out under the promise of aid. He called the allegation an opposition lie.
Jiek blamed the killings on the Agwelek militia, a Shilluk group that has not been fully integrated into the national army but has played a role in recent military operations. He said the fighters had left their barracks overnight without their commander's knowledge, and that several officers had been arrested while 150 fighters from the battalion involved were disarmed. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang could not be reached for comment.
The attack struck a county already weakened by years of conflict, flooding and food shortages. Ayod sits in Jonglei, an opposition stronghold in northern South Sudan, and aid groups have warned that access restrictions in opposition-held areas are worsening the risks to civilians. AP reported that more than half of Ayod County's population faces severe food insecurity, while the U.N. estimates renewed fighting has displaced 280,000 people since December. Residents in the area are overwhelmingly from the Nuer ethnic group associated with suspended vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar.
The killings also fed a wider political and ethnic dispute. Opposition officials have repeatedly described government operations in Nuer areas as genocidal, and SPLM-IO official Reath Tang Muoch said recent remarks from Agwelek commander Lt. Gen. Johnson Olony were an early signal of genocidal intent. Olony was filmed in January ordering fighters to kill civilians during military operations in Jonglei before later apologizing. For residents of Pankor, though, the immediate question was simpler: whether any aid promise could ever again be trusted after an attack carried out under its cover.
Even the way the story surfaced underscores the information gap in remote conflict zones. AP said the images it reviewed were too graphic to publish, and the only numerical certainty was that more than a dozen people died. With much of the village already emptied by earlier fighting, the attack also raised fears that armed groups can still summon civilians by exploiting the promise of aid, even after years of warnings about hunger and displacement in Jonglei. In a place where roads, phones and official records are limited, the gap between what survivors saw and what authorities can prove can remain wide for days or longer.
