JUBA: At least 60 people have been killed and dozens wounded in battles over livestock in South Sudan’s northern state of Western Lakes, local officials said Friday – the latest in a series of attacks between rival communities. Battles over cattle between rival factions of the Dinka people, the Rup and Pakam clans, broke out on Dec. 6 in the central area of Western Lakes, some 250 kilometers northwest of the capital Juba. “More than 60 people were killed and dozens wounded,” Akol Paul Kordit, a local MP who also serves as the country’s deputy information minister, wrote in a statement. Fighting continued with the latest raid at dawn Friday, it added.

In the clashes, houses were burned down and properties destroyed, the state’s Information Minister Shadrack Bol Maachok said, adding that South Sudan’s military, the SPLA, had deployed troops from the state capital Rumbek to try to stop the violence. The U.N. mission in South Sudan said it had dispatched a military patrol to the area to establish the level of destruction and the impact on civilians.

“We hope to engage the leaders of the fighting parties to press the need to refrain from revenge attacks. We will also intensify patrols to deter further violence,” UNMISS said.

Rival pastoralist communities in South Sudan have a long and bloody history of tit-for-tat raids in which cattle are rustled and property looted. Women are commonly raped and children abducted, adding fuel to revenge attacks.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny confirmed the “senseless” attacks, and said security chiefs had been summoned to a meeting on the violence. Such attacks have worsened amid the breakdown of society during the four-year civil war that began in December 2013.