UN condemns shooting at IDPs in Juba

June 22, 2015 (NEW YORK) – United Nations (UN) has condemned a Saturday shooting at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) sheltered in the United Nations protection site in the South Sudanese capital, Juba, and vowed to investigate and find those responsible for the crime.

The United Nations headquarters in New York has issued a statement about the incident in which at least four IDPs women and one man were targeted and shot in a market near UN site in the capital on Saturday.

“From our colleagues at the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) – they report that five internally displaced persons (IDPs) – four women and one man — were shot during an incident early Saturday evening at a market area adjacent to the protection-of-civilians site in Juba,” said UN’s spokesman, Dujarric, in a released statement.

He said four of the wounded people were taken to a clinic inside the UN site for medical treatment and their conditions were serious. Other two displaced people were injured as they fled the scene of the shooting.

“And UNMISS is investigating the incident,” he said.

However, IDPs sources contacted by Sudan Tribune alleged that security forces were responsible for the Saturday’s shooting, saying they saw soldiers in uniform shooting at the IDPs women who went to the nearby market.

“They were soldiers of Salva Kiir who shot at the women in the market. They hate us to death. They believe everybody protected by the UN here is a supporter of Dr. Riek Machar,” said Thomas Gatwech, referring to the armed opposition leader.

There are over 100,000 IDPs sheltered in many UN civilian protection sites scattered across the country since the war began in December 2013 and the number has been increasing. Majority of them are from Machar’s Nuer ethnic group, who the arch political rival threatening president Kiir’s leadership.

Meanwhile, Dujarric also accused the armed opposition faction led by Machar of denying permission to UN aircrafts to land in a government controlled town of Nasir which the rebels have allegedly besieged.

“UN aircrafts have been denied permission to land at the Mission’s county support base in the Upper Nile State town of Nassir by armed opposition forces – this is for the 6th consecutive day,” the UN statement further says.

“The amount of supplies for the UNMISS personnel stationed at the Nassir base is reaching critically low levels as a result of the inability to operate flights into Nassir,” he said.

The world body is concerned that as the rainy season begins, movement may be more difficult in a country which only has less than 200km tarmacked road out of over 7,000km roads network the government identified and earmarked to be tarmacked.

(ST)