LATEST: UN Rights experts fear intense fighting in South Sudan as “the nation is crumbling”

[Elisabeth Janaina]

LATEST: UN Rights experts fear intense fighting in South Sudan as “the
nation is crumbling”
Nov. 30 Featured, Uncategorized 2 comments

By AFP, WEDNESDAY, NOV/30/2016, SSN;

UN human rights experts on a fact-finding mission to South Sudan
warned Wednesday, November 30, 2016, of an escalation in ethnic
violence in the war-torn country.

“Many expect intensified fighting now that the dry season is setting
in,” said Yasmin Sooka of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South
Sudan.

Sooka was speaking to the press in the capital Juba at the end of a
10-day visit during which the three-member team spoke with civilians
in the battleground towns of Bentiu, Malakal and Wau, as well as
government officials and members of civil society.

“There are unprecedented levels of violence and ethnic tension all
over South Sudan,” Sooka said.

“Any sense of national identity is crumbling and tribal or ethnic
identity is taking over. I repeatedly heard of the desire for
revenge,” she added.

South Sudan’s current conflict began nearly three years ago when
President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy and political rival,
Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Since then the world’s newest nation
has fractured along ethnic lines in a civil war characterised by
atrocities.

Sooka said government and rebel armies were both forcibly recruiting
soldiers — including children — and warned that “renewed recruitment
is an indicator that all the parties are preparing for the next
conflict”.

The UN rights experts repeated calls for an arms embargo, sanctions,
the deployment of another 4,000 peacekeepers and the establishment of
a special war crimes court.

The US on Wednesday also warned of escalating violence.

“We have credible information that the South Sudanese government is
currently targeting civilians in Central Equatoria and preparing for
large scale attacks in the coming days or weeks,” Keith Harper, the US
representative at the UN Human Rights Council, said in Geneva.

“In the last two weeks, the government has mobilised at least 4,000
militia from other areas of South Sudan and is staging these fighters
in Equatoria to begin conducting attacks,” Harper said.

Earlier this month the UN’s Special Advisor on the Prevention of
Genocide, Adama Dieng, told the Security Council there was a risk of
“outright ethnic war” and the “potential for genocide”.

The UN rights experts are expected to publish a report of their
findings in March. END
<< Older
2 Comments

gatdarwich
December 1, 2016 at 12:07 am

Dear Patriots in Easter Equatoria,

Don’t be alarmed or panic for 4000 of killer nyankiir’s militants
won’t and shall never be allowed to commit genocide or bully civilians
in that area because General John Jok Gai of SPLA-IO is fully in
charge of making sure that the traitorous and coward Jenges are
totally cremated to perfection there full stop
Reply
mading
December 1, 2016 at 8:17 pm

Gatdarwich. Which patriots are you talking about ? Are you talking
about the ones under UN cared in DRC ?