South Sudan says no hint that dead American was a journalist
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The American
journalist shot dead in South Sudan over the weekend had entered the
country illegally with rebels, the army said Tuesday. There was no
indication that Christopher Allen, 26, was a journalist, said army
spokesman Lul Ruai Koang, who warned that journalists will not be
protected if they come with rebels into this East African country's
civil war.
Anybody who comes attacking us with hostile forces will meet his fate," said Koang. Allen, a freelance journalist, was killed Saturday in fighting between government and rebel forces near the Ugandan border. His body was handed over by South Sudan's army to the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday.
Allen was shot in the head with a "large bullet," the army's chief medical officer, Dr. Peter Ajak Bullen, said, but he couldn't confirm that the American was killed at close range. It is not clear who shot Allen. "Bullets don't know color or race," the army spokesman told journalists.
South Sudan's rebels have given a different account of Allen's death. Government troops "targeted" Allen when they saw him taking photos during the fighting, opposition spokesman William Gatjiath Deng said. The opposition said Allen was wearing a large vest with the word "Press."
The
opposition's deputy spokesman, Col. Lam Paul Gabriel, has said Allen
and two other journalists were embedded with the rebels on a two-week
mission after coming from Uganda's capital, Kampala. Allen is the 10th
journalist and the first international journalist to be killed in South
Sudan since 2012, according to the United Nations. South Sudan is one of
the harshest places in the world for journalists, according to press
freedom groups. In the past few months, 15 South Sudanese journalists
have been detained, beaten or denied access to information, according to
the Union of Journalists in South Sudan, and more than 20 foreign
journalists have been denied entry or kicked out.
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