Dozens killed in South Sudan after oil tanker crash

In addition to those killed in Wednesday’s blast, Charles Kisagna, the minister of information in Western Equatoria, said about 50 people were seriously injured.

However, the provincial governor, Patrick Raphael Zamoi, cited a much higher death toll of 176 and said others were critically injured.

Local hospitals have been overwhelmed, and state officials have appealed to the Red Cross and the United Nations for help.

An explosion claimed over 100 victims when groups of people huddled around a crashed oil tanker trying to siphon gas, officials said Thursday.

The vehicle was on its way to a region west of the capital Juba when it tipped over and later exploded, the presidential spokesman said today.

A local doctor told Sudanese radio station Radio Tamazuj that they were running out of basic medical supplies like oyxgen and pain killers.

Sparked by over 21-months of civil war, South Sudan is also in the grip of a dire economic crisis, that has caused soaring prices of basics and rampant inflation, including fuel and food.

The violence has left tens of thousands of people dead and the impoverished country split along ethnic lines.

A tentative internationally-mediated peace agreement was signed in August but the ceasefire has already been violated.