Wiyuach Makuach sat on her bed in a dimly lit ward of a hospital near South Sudan’s border with Ethiopia and rested her remaining arm in her lap as she recalled the airstrike that took her other arm and nearly killed her. “Everything was on fire,” she said in an interview at the hospital in the border town of Akobo where she was being treated for her injuries. The bombing happened on May 3 at another hospital in the northern community of Fangak where she had traveled to be with her 25-year-old son while he sought treatment for tuberculosis. A series of strikes there, including several at the Doctors Without Borders facility, killed seven people. “I ran outside and started rubbing mud on myself to stop the burning,” Makuach said. Makuach, 60, is just one of the dozens of civilians who aid groups say have been killed or badly injured by airstrikes in recent weeks as South Sudan’s army clashes with militia groups across the country. The army says it targets only combatants, and has not commented on civilian casualties. “The army displaced us and our families into the bush and that’s when we decided we would fight back,” said Gatkuoth Wie, 24, who was wounded while fighting in northern Jonglei State.

Full report : Civilian casualties mount in South Sudan as fighting between army and local militias escalates.