ISTANBUL 

A group of unknown armed assailants killed at least 12 people and injured 17 others in South Sudan on early Sunday, according to local media.

“The attackers came at around 1.00 a.m. on Sunday and indiscriminately started shooting while people were sleeping, which resulted in the killing of these 12 people, among them two girls and two children,” William Koji, Lakes State’s acting Information Minister, told local news agency Aweil.

The attackers are suspected to be armed youth from neighboring counties in Unity state, and they raided an unknown number of cattle, but some cattle were recovered with the South Sudanese army’s support, according to Koji.

Condemning the attack, he urged the Unity state government to take action to stop the “issue of criminals raiding cattle and killing innocent civilians.”

"This is very serious, and I'm asking our counterparts from Unity State to deal with these criminals because we couldn't cross from Lakes State to Unity State to apprehend them," Kohi said.