Thousands killed in South Sudan violence

JUBA: Thousands of South Sudanese have been killed in over a week of violence with reports of bodies piled in mass graves, the United Nations (UN) said on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), as the Security Council agreed to nearly double its peacekeepers in the young nation threatening to slide into civil war.

The top UN humanitarian chief in the country Toby Lanzer said on Tuesday there was “absolutely no doubt in my mind that we’re into the thousands” of dead, the first clear indication of the scale of the conflict engulfing South Sudan, which won independence from Sudan to much fanfare just two years ago.