At least 29 people were killed when cattle raiders from a South Sudanese minority group opened fire on members of another minority in a village in Upper Nile state, a local official said on Sunday.

The gunmen crept into Tolleri village in Ulang county in the early hours of Saturday morning and sprayed it with bullets, killing 23 people instantly, said Dak Tap Chuol, commissioner for the nearby town of Nasir.

The victims of the attack were from the minority Jikany people, the official said, and the attackers were Murle, another minority tribe, who came from neighbouring Jonglei state.

“When people awoke they tried to shoot back but it was too late,” Chuol said.

“Eleven women and four children” were killed, with another 17 people wounded, he added.

Chuol said that one of a team of village youths that set off hours later to recover the stolen cows was also shot dead, along with three raiders.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which travelled to the remote area by speedboat on Saturday, took back 16 people with gunshot wounds to its Nasir hospital.

“Two of them have died as the result of their injuries, including one child of eight years old,” said Raphael Gorgeu, MSF head of mission in South Sudan.

Fourteen of the patients were women and children.

“This is of great concern that civilians, and especially women and children, are the most affected by such an attack,” said Gorgeu.