Deaths from South Sudan oil truck blast rise to more than 100

At least 85 people were killed in South Sudan when an overturned oil truck exploded as a crowd gathered to siphon fuel from it, a presidential spokesman said Thursday.

“Eighty five people are confirmed dead by the local authorities”, Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told reporters a day after the incident occurred.

Such incidents have happened before in a region where fuel tankers often have to travel long distances along potholed roads and pass through poor communities.

Officials say the locals who noticed the crash began to converge upon the truck, which was “full of petrol”, and started siphoned fuel that leaked out of the back.

Charles Kisagna, minister of information for the state, said about 50 others were also seriously injured in the blast. “The tanker then exploded for unclear reasons”, one of the eyewitnesses said.

Chandi Savior, a doctor at Maridi hospital, told Radio Tamazuj that they were struggling to help all those with burns, with supplies of basics such as oxygen and painkillers running low.#.

It has been mired in an internal conflict between government forces and rebels since 2013, having only gained independence in 2011.

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