NAIROBI: Six aid workers have been killed in an ambush in South Sudan, the UN said on Sunday, the latest such attack in the country suffering a famine blamed on brutal civil war.

A humanitarian source working in the country said that the victims, three Kenyans and three South Sudanese working for a local aid group, were travelling from the capital Juba to the eastern town of Pibor in a convoy when the attack took place on Saturday.

Their car was stopped by unknown assailants and “they were taken from the vehicle and shot and killed,” the source said.

Three years of civil war in South Sudan have seen warring parties deny access to aid, attack humanitarian workers and loot relief supplies.

The conflict has displaced about 2.5 million people from their homes and fields and created a devastating humanitarian crisis, including a famine affecting 100,000 and threatening another one million.

“I am appalled and outraged by the heinous murder yesterday (Saturday) of six courageous humanitarians in South Sudan,” Eugene Owusu of the UN Office for the Coordination of Huma­nitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2017