“The minister for rural development and co-operation has been killed by a driver working at the ministry. He also killed a guard at the door of the ministry then shot himself,” South Sudan’s army spokesperson Philip Aguer said.
Final results of a referendum on independence confirmed on Monday that South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation on July 09.
Three officials confirmed the dead minister was Jimmy Lemi. No motive was immediately clear for the attack, which underlines insecurity in the South Sudan capital Juba ahead of independence.
Violence in the south remains persistent six years after a peace deal ended decades of north-south civil war. Ethnic tension and tit-for-tat cattle raids killed an estimated 3 000 people in 2009 alone, although clashes had subsided ahead of the January referendum.
Source: news24