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Warning: Some people may find details in this article distressing
A REPORT RELEASED today documents the atrocities being carried out in South Sudan.
The ongoing conflict in the country has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee the Equatoria region over the past year, leading to atrocities, starvation and fear, according to a new Amnesty International briefing.
The organisation’s researchers visited the region in June, documenting how mainly government but also opposition forces in the southern region have committed crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations and abuses – including war crimes – against civilians.
The report – ‘If men are caught, they are killed. If women are caught, they are raped‘ – says the atrocities have resulted in the mass displacement of close to one million people, including refugees fleeing into neighbouring Uganda.
Abductions and rapes
Researchers have also documented how abductions and rape of women and girls have skyrocketed across the Equatoria region since fighting escalated last year.
“The only way for women and girls to be safe is to be dead – there is no way to be safe so long as we are alive, this is how bad it is,” Mary, a 23-year-old mother-of-five, told Amnesty.
In April, three soldiers broke into her home in the middle of the night and two of them raped her. She later fled with her children to another abandoned home but, on another night, an unidentified attacker set fire to it as the family slept, forcing them to flee again.
Women are particularly at risk of sexual assault when they venture out of town to look for food in the surrounding rural areas – a necessity due to dwindling food supplies and increased looting, Amnesty said.
Sofia, 29, said opposition forces abducted her twice. They held her captive with other women for around a month the first time and a week the second time, and she was raped repeatedly. They were undeterred by her pleas that she was a mother-of-three and that her husband had been shot by government forces. She later fled to the town of Yei, where she faces dire food shortages.
The Equatoria region had been largely spared the political and inter-communal violence which has ravaged South Sudan since 2013, when fighting broke out between members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), loyal to President Salva Kiir, and those loyal to then Vice President Riek Machar.
This changed in mid-2016 when both government and opposition forces descended on Yei, a strategic town of some 300,000 people 150km southwest of the capital Juba, on a main trade route to Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Amnesty said government forces, supported by allied militia including mainly young, ethnic Dinka fighters, have “committed a litany of violations with impunity”, adding: “Opposition armed groups have also committed grave abuses, albeit on a smaller scale.”
Massacres and deliberate killings
Numerous eyewitnesses in villages around Yei told Amnesty International how government forces and allied militia deliberately killed civilians. People who escaped the slaughter described a similar pattern.
In one such attack on 16 May last, government soldiers arbitrarily detained 11 men in Kudupi village, in Kajo Keji county, near the Ugandan border. Amnesty said the soldiers forced eight of the men into a hut, locked the door, set it ablaze and fired several shots into the burning structure.
Six men were killed in the incident – two burnt to death and the other four were shot as they tried to flee, four of the survivors said.
Joyce, a mother-of-six from Payawa village, south of Yei, described how her husband and five other local men were killed in a similar attack on 18 May. She also told Amnesty International how soldiers had repeatedly tormented the villagers prior to the massacre.
“This was the fifth time the village was attacked by the army. In the first four attacks, they had looted stuff but not killed anyone. They used to come, arrest people, torture them and steal things.
They would take people to hidden places to torture them. They would also arrest young girls and rape them and then release them.
Joyce said they raped her husband’s 18-year-old niece on 18 December 2016.
In another incident, Amnesty said nine villagers disappeared after being taken by soldiers from a barracks near Gimunu, 13 kilometres outside Yei, on 21 May last. A police investigation located the bodies of all nine by mid-June.
The victims are believed to have been hacked to death with machetes. Nobody has been held to account, which is apparently not unusual when police try to investigate cases of soldiers killing civilians. Attacks on villages by government forces often appear to be in revenge for the activities of opposition forces in the region.
Armed opposition fighters have also deliberately killed civilians they deem to be government supporters, often simply for being a member of the Dinka ethnic group or refugees from Sudan’s Nuba Mountains region who are accused of sympathising with the government.
‘Hacked to death’
Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland, said the escalation of fighting in the Equatoria region has “led to increased brutality against civilians”.
Men, women and children have been shot, hacked to death with machetes and burnt alive in their homes. Women and girls have been gang-raped and abducted. Homes, schools, medical facilities and humanitarian organisations’ compounds have been looted, vandalised and burnt to the ground. Food is being used as a weapon of war.
“These atrocities are ongoing, with hundreds of thousands of people who only a year ago were relatively unscathed by the conflict, now forcibly displaced,” O’Gorman said.
Amnesty noted that civilians’ access to food is “severely limited”. The organisation said both government and opposition forces “have cut food supplies to certain areas, systematically looted food from markets and homes and targeted civilians carrying even the smallest amount of food across frontlines”.
Each side accuses civilians of feeding or being fed by the enemy. In the town of Yei, the majority of whose inhabitants have fled in the past year, the remaining civilians are under virtual siege. They face severe food shortages because they are no longer able to get food in the surrounding rural areas.
On 22 June, the United Nations warned that food insecurity had reached unprecedented levels in parts of South Sudan. More than 100,000 people in the region are affected by famine.
“It is a cruel tragedy of this war that South Sudan’s breadbasket – a region that a year ago could feed millions – has turned into treacherous killing fields that have forced close to a million to flee in search of safety.
“All parties to the conflict must rein in their fighters and immediately cease targeting civilians, who are protected under the laws of war. Those on all sides responsible for atrocities must be brought to justice. Meanwhile, UN peacekeepers must live up to their mandate to protect civilians from this ongoing onslaught,” O’Gorman stated.
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These perpetrators are, literally, below the status of animals. But what will anyone do about it? Oh yes… what’s the flag of South Sudan so I can put superimpose it on my Facebook profile picture? There, that’s done, we can all sleep again tonight.
@Martin Flood: Don’t forget the trendy hash tag #jesuissouthsudan
@Martin Flood: what’s your suggestion Martin?
Africa seems to be in trouble everywhere ,they can’t all come to live in Europe .they need to sort it out themselves even if it takes a hundred years
@Gerard Heery: they are behind 100 years at present
@Quentin Moriarty: 300 years perhaps a programme of sterilisation would keep millions from going through a life of total misery!!!
@john g mcgrath: Yes, let’s stop poor people being born, then we wont have to share the wealth . . .
@Neil Mcdonough: what wealth? There us no wealth unless it’s created first. Africa is a drain on the rest of the world.
@Gerard Heery: conflict in Africa since us Europeans started to scramble for their land centuries ago.
@Fabio Dillon: more pathological lefty guilt that is destroying our continent.
@Squarepeg01: it’s true Africa was carved up by the Europeans
Gaddafi was trying to change the balance of power for those nations and look where it got him
@Neil Mcdonough: oh for God’s sake grow up. It’s common sense if you’re poor you should stop at one or two not keep popping them out till your tits are at your knees. There’s only so many resources and if people regardless of wealth should cop on to that. What you’re proposing is everyone does exactly as they please and the rest of the world should pay for it. It sounds so infantile.
Who supplies the arms used by the fighting parties??
@Mohamed Elshafi:
Yep, nailed it there. Billions are made by the immoral arms industry.
At a international level, arms dealers/exporters and arm companies need to be brought to heel and charged for the crimes they facilate.
Unfortunately, 2 chances of that happening…. F all and none. Depressing.
About time Africans sorted their own shite out,outside intervention obviously doesn’t work
@billy Dorney: in many cases, outside intervention has made Africa infinitely worse
@billy Dorney: Don’t forget after been discussed sold into Disney for the new world, by both the British and stars the US. You forgot about that.
@Ossi Fritsche: not Disney, slavery…. Fracking autocorrect.
@Ossi Fritsche: I think you’ll find the slave trade in South Sudan was run by Arabs and broken up by the British.
@Ossi Fritsche: I think it was correct the first time Ossi.
@billy Dorney: No. Clearly outside intervention is needed in certain circumstances.
Would you say that not intervening in Rwanda where an appalling genocide was being carried out was the right thing to do?
@Malachi: what kind of intervention? Troops on the ground? Irish soldiers at the quantities required?
@Squarepeg01: anything that would’ve been needed to stop the wholesale barbarism that occurred in Rwanda would’ve been worth it.
Not a lot of sympathy coming from the breakfast tables this morning guys ! Don’t spread the butter and marmalade too thickly on your toast now … you might spill some on your nice clothes ! The people, women and children included , are starving to death and being tortured and killed or raped when they go looking for food for themselves and their families to stay alive , and what I see is throwaway comments like ” it’s time Africa sorted out it’s own problems.” Get a grip… and have a little think about this !
@Terry Cahill:
Well , nobody else can fix their problems except themselves… and running away to the eu is not the correct solution either . Get a grip and have alittle think about it
@Ollie O’Brien: Don’t forget that Africa was divided up and pillaged by European imperial powers, borders drawn to ensure ethnic divisions etc, etc. And to this day, western corporations ensure that that a minority benefit from their presence and the poor are left to fend for themselves. Europe doesn’t have the resources to feed it’s needs, where do you think we get them from and do you think it’s in our interest not to have control, even if it’s by economic power?
Get a grip and have a little think about it . . .
@Ollie O’Brien: this is not Africa’s problem but mostly caused by hundreds of years of colonization by European nations and now Africans want to migrate to Europe and whites say no.
@Ossi Fritsche: moorish nations didnt have any meddling in africa then , no slave trade there. It aint our problem period
@Neil Mcdonough: oh do %%%% off, there’s a good chap. Africa was tribal and feudal savagery before and after. What is notable is the lack of progress in parts of Africa compared to India, East Asia, South America etc. The almost complete absence of modern medical services other than those provided by western charity. It isn’t for the want of endless aid money.
@Stu MacDuff: So did Europeans go there to fix it and bring our values yawn etc, or for something else? But the start of your comment indicates intelligent conversation is out of the question, and since when did people start saying ‘there’s a good chap’ in Ireland? So take your own advice . . .
@Neil Mcdonough: take ur thumb out of ur rear end and loosen ur grip on ur front end and think about it a little more, now isnt that better, there a good little man
@Ollie O’Brien: Good, well researched and erudite comment. Did you get your mammy to write it for you?
@Neil Mcdonough: Neil, the US and other Western countries have been trying to impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions through UN resolutions. Guess who is opposing the attempt to stop the conflict?
Russia and China both hold vetos in the UNSC and both abstained on a resolution that would’ve helped end the conflict. Instead, the possible genocide continues unabated and it’s not the Western powers at fault for not intervening (like it was in Rwanda).
To point out a history of colonialism first without recognising the major harm states like Russia and China are doing through their refusal to act in the present day seems very odd indeed.
@Neil Mcdonough: nope your mother did afyer she clean herself up and made breakfast!
Play the ball and keep mums out of it
Eh thats nothing new in Africa a small bit of research will show the dozens of videos of the mobs taking out vigilante justice in the most savage ways! Kids and all joining in!
It’s ok. The popes gonna pray for em.
@Paul: This paradigm appears too often; not sure how we can do much more old boy. Apart from contributing to relief efforts…sermons often bring these efforts to my attention and I then contribute. It harms you not.
terrible situation with no obvious solution
There are some amount of animals on this comments section. It’s no advertisement for civilisation or humanity
@Eóin: It’s the journal, what do you expect? People who think they were educated when all that they got was training to be a cog in the economic consumer wheel. Thinking for yourself is not encouraged.
Where is the international condemnation and coalition of forces waiting to help these people? Oh yeah, I forgot, theres no oil worth mentioning. Not enough for the powers that be to pretend they care about people suffering.
@Philip O’Dowd: No but we’re very concerned (yeah right) about human rights abuses by muslim dictators in oil rich countries, except the Saudis that is.
@Neil Mcdonough: As I’ve said above, there has been a major effort to stop this horrific conflict at the UN – much to the displeasure of many here, it’s not the US perpetuating the conflict, but trying to stop it.
Sadly, the great peacemakers in Putin’s Russia decided the people of South Sudan would be better served by continued mass murder and are happy to let the UN sit idly by.
I’m sure the western world contribute to this in some way, shape, or form.
Shocking stuff regardless tho.
@Trevor W: Yep someone has got to make the billions in arms sales.
@paddlingAlong: they are not fighting with long range missile systems and modern tanks and aircraft. This is on the ground, AK47 replicas, RPG, machetes. Often produced domestically.
@Trevor W: The Western world are trying to stop the conflict, but haven’t been allowed to do so by the Eastern countries with a veto on the UN security council (Russia, China). You should do your research before blindly blaming the West for everything.
You won’t see western countries go on about freedom and democracy, etc. when it comes to Africa and likes of Boko Haram. Hypocrites.
@Alan: Alan your an idiot.
@Ossi Fritsche: Irony isn’t your strong suit.
Most of the ills of present day Africa has been founded years before any Euro colonisation through clans and kings and it holds true today as in the conflict in Libya
Those who govern the individual nations are inherently corrupt and not governing for the common good only themselves and cronies
Much of the aid sent to the countries are channeled away from the people at a minimum via tariffs and taxes
Some will eat like kings and be short sighted by not investing in infrastructure so the loop continues
Short of the west outing the leaders which would be calamitous the problems will persist
@Quentin Moriarty: Who was it that said divide and conquer, many who raped Africa first stirred it up amongst the tribes to keep them fighting each other than those in charged?
It’s funny when Irish people moan about people suffering from food insecurity/famine given our history.
It must be so easy to tend your crops and support yourself when your farmland is now a warzone.
Those bloody Africans must be just too lazy to help themselves or something.
Put the price of your mochacino towards school fees for Equatorian children refugeed in North Uganda:
IBAN: IE04ULSB98621510470517
So they can learn how to help themselves
This is all George Clooney’s fault. He created that failed state.
And Louise O Neill gives out about rape culture in Ireland.
African countries are been designed for corruption, by the colonial(s)… So! What do you expect…?
It is cause by evil people, full stop. Just look at what a person does to another and all you have to ask is it good or evil and their actions are what they do as that is who they are?
So extremely sad. Since school days we have given funds for the black babies in Africa and the problem seems now to be so much worse after nearly 40 years.
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