South Sudan forces killed 114 civilians around Yei in six months - U.N

The U.N on Friday says South Sudanese pro-government forces killed at least 114 civilians in and around Yei town between July 2016 and January 2017.

The global human rights on Friday said the forces also committed uncounted rapes, and torture.

“The report documents targeted killings by the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), for the killing on 14th of October of a 50-year-old man who had called into Radio Bakhita specifically to denounce the killings – he was then shot dead. In other instances, civilians were rounded up in huts, shot, and the huts were set on fire,” U.N Human Rights Agency for Africa Chief, Juliette De Rivero said.

According to the U.N 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.

“We believe that what we’ve documented is just a small sample of what has really happened in Yei, but access restrictions were such by the government that we were unable to uncover the full depth of the violations and to adequately document in fact violations by the opposition,” De Rivero said.

Fighting flared when the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), loyal to President Salva Kiir, pursued his rival and former deputy Riek Machar and a small band of followers as they fled from the capital Juba, southwest into neighboring Congo.

The pursuit of Machar ushered in a particularly violent period in South Sudan’s region, with multiple localized conflicts, particularly in Yei, the report said. It added that Yei, a traditionally ethnically diverse area, had been largely peaceful before the attacks.