Former S. Sudanese security official flees amid safety fears

January 20, 2015 (KAMPALA) – A member of South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) says she was forced to flee the country over threats made to her personal safety by colleagues after she witnessed atrocities against civilians following the outbreak of violence in December 2013.

The South Sudanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Sudan Tribune that the agency had been monitoring her activities due to her knowledge of ethnic killings that are alleged to have taken place in the capital, Juba, between 16 and 19 December 2013.

“Most of my colleagues within [the] NSS were monitoring my activity within the country for almost nine months after [a] political dispute erupted in South Sudan,” she told Sudan Tribune by phone on Tuesday from an undisclosed East African nation.

“I have to flee for my safety to another country for my security purpose,” she added.

She said that national security officers were deployed across the capital following the outbreak of violence on 15 December after a political dispute within the country’s ruling SPLM party reignited ethnic tensions.

She claims that she witnessed several cases of women and young girls being raped by security personnel.

“I had been moving with them night by night and day by day, witnessing the killing of civilians and children, mostly those who are in areas populated by [the] Nuer ethnicity,” she said.

The former official says she joined the country’s then guerilla movement turned national army (SPLA) in Eastern Equatoria in 1988. Four years after the late Dr John Garang De Mabior founded the movement in 1983.

She says what she witnessed in mid-December 2013 was some of the worst atrocities in South Sudanese history and outweighed those committed during the protracted north-south civil war.

The former official says she continues to fear for her life amid ongoing threats from the government.

“Up to now I do not feel safe, as most of my colleagues are working hard to find out my whereabouts in this country,” she said.

Pro-government troops loyal to president Salva Kiir and rebel forces aligned with former vice-president Riek Machar have been engaged in an armed struggle since the December 2013 outbreak of violence.

Both warring parties are alleged to have carried out targeted mass killings of civilians in Central Equatoria, Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei states, according to a series of reports published by human rights groups.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the United Nations mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) have documented what is claims are crimes against humanity that they say may amount to war crimes.

Civilians were reportedly targeted based on their ethnicity and alleged support of opposition forces.

Ongoing peace talks in Ethiopia between the warring parties, which are being mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), have so far failed to yield a lasting political settlement to the crisis.

The international community has continued to urge both sides to refrain from further violence, calling on them to put aside their differences and resolve the crisis peacefully.

(ST)