UN agencies release new report on human right violations in South Sudan’s Yei
May 19, 2017 (JUBA) – The United Nations has released a new report on the human rights violations and abuses against civilians in Yei town in Central Equatoria stressing it may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
The report which is jointly released by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) covers the period of July 2016 and January 2017.
Yei had been a largely peaceful town, with between 200,000 and 300,000 residents of many different ethnicities, until July 2016, when violence erupted between Government and opposition forces, which led to the departure of opposition leader Riek Machar into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“The conflict in Yei, in particular, highlights the startling level of impunity in South Sudan, which has fed successive cycles of violence across the country,” said the report, which contains the findings of an in-depth investigation into violations committed in and around the Central Equatoria town, located 150 kilometres southwest of the capital, Juba.
The report documents 114 cases where the SPLA and allied militias arbitrarily killed civilians for their alleged support to the SPLM/A In Opposition.
These cases included attacks on funerals and indiscriminate shelling of civilians; cases of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls, including those fleeing fighting; often committed in front of the victims’ families and with a shocking degree of brutality, said the report.
The UNMISS and HCR pointed that the rebel groups are also responsible for human rights abuses. “The extent of these abuses remains unclear given the Government prevented HRD from accessing areas where armed opposition forces were active”.
The two bodies reiterated their call to end the war and urged the transitional government led by President Salva Kiir to investigate and prosecute those believed to be responsible for gross human rights violations and abuses.
The Transitional Government of National Unity “must also ensure that victims whose human rights have been violated have access to an effective remedy, including just, fair and gender-sensitive reparations,” the report says.
(ST)