Boundary hunters

Sudan | Violence escalates in South Sudan as a border ruling by an international court looms | Jamie Dean

Tim McKulka/UNMIS/AP

In a tin-roof hospital in the Nasir region of South Sudan, Nyachiew Gatbel nurses her baby and a bullet wound. The 22-year-old mother is flanked by other young women recovering from an attack on their nearby village of Torkech in June. "They attacked us at night, coming from all sides when we were sleeping," Gatbel told the BBC. "They fired the guns everywhere, and they shot me in the leg."

Gatbel's story is one grim slice of the inter-tribal violence gripping South Sudan: According to the United Nations, more people have died violently in South Sudan than in the country's western region of Darfur in recent months. UN officials say the fighting over land and cattle has killed hundreds of people, displaced thousands, and razed scores of villages this year alone.