Days after declaring S. Sudan independent state
A South Sudan minister was shot dead inside his ministry on Wednesday, days after referendum 
results confirmed the region will become Africa’s newest independent state, the southern army spokesman said.
“The minister for rural development and cooperation has been killed by a driver working at the ministry. He also killed a guard at the door of the ministry then shot himself,” South Sudan’s army spokesman Philip Aguer said.
The cause of Wednesday’s shooting was not immediately clear but appears unrelated to Southern Sudan’s successful independence referendum from the north.
Final results of a referendum on independence confirmed on Monday that South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation on July 9.
Three officials confirmed the dead minister was Jimmy Lemi. No motive was clear for the attack, which underlines insecurity in the South Sudan capital Juba ahead of independence.
Violence in the south remains persistent six years after a peace deal ended decades of north-south civil war. Ethnic tension and tit-for-tat cattle raids killed an estimated 3,000 people in 2009 alone, although clashes had subsided ahead of the January referendum.
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