Human rights groups call for justice over Wau killings
May 24, 2013 (LONDON) – Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch launched a joint statement on Friday calling on South Sudan to properly investigate the deaths of eight protesters in Wau, one of the country’s largest towns, in December last year.
The peaceful marchers were shot at by armed men believed to be members of South Sudan’s security forces.
Six people died at the scene, while two more protesters died later in hospital. The previous evening two men died between when violence broke out between youth and security forces.
Netsanet Belay, Africa Director at Amnesty International said: “The security forces have a duty to protect lives and uphold the rule of law. It is therefore completely unacceptable for them to use live ammunition against peaceful protesters.”
While Human Rights Watch’s Africa Director, Daniel Bekele, pointed out that: “Eight peaceful protesters are dead in South Sudan at the hands of security forces and apparently no one has been charged or prosecuted five months later.”
“This sets a bad precedent for a new country and undermines freedom of expression and peaceful assembly across South Sudan”, he further said.
The global human rights groups have both visited Wau this year.
Western Bahr el Ghazal’s governor, Rizik Zachariah Hassan, told Human Rights Watch in May that police shot the protesters while defending a nearby bank against people he described as “rioters”.
However, eyewitnesses say that the protesters marched peacefully past the bank. This version of events has been corroborated by video footage obtained by Al Jazeera.
“They started shooting as soon as they saw us,” an 18-year-old man, shot in both legs during the protest, told Human Rights Watch.
“All the young men were at the front. I saw three of them fall dead to the ground.”
A doctor who saw the bodies after the protest told the human rights groups that the eight people killed were all shot in the head or in the chest. The identities of the forces responsible for the killings remain unclear.
“Authorities should ensure full, effective and impartial investigations leading to the prosecution of those responsible for these killings more than five months ago and for a number of other deaths during the civil unrest in Wau”, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said.
Peaceful assembly, as well as the freedoms of association and expression are protected by South Sudan’s transitional constitution.
The human rights groups urged South Sudan’s armed forces to “as far as possible, apply non-violent means” and only use firearms “as a last resort – when strictly necessary in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury, and the intentional lethal use of firearms is only permissible when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”
According to accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, “the security forces made no efforts to control or disperse the crowds with non-violent or less then lethal means before opening fire at the protesters. They gave no warnings of their intention to use firearms, and they made no attempts to prevent or minimize death or injury.”
The joint report said that the incident has not yet being investigated adequately and the responsible for the killing remains unclear.
“Under international standards, every use of lethal force in law enforcement operations, including those that are allegedly accidental, must be subject to an independent and impartial investigation”, concluded the two rights groups.
(ST)