Crimes against humanity by both sides in South Sudan conflict: UN
Thu May 8, 2014 6:25pm GMT
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS May 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations accused both government
and rebel forces in South Sudan on Thursday of committing crimes against
humanity, including murder, rape and other sexual violence, during almost
five months of fighting that has left thousands of people dead.
"The consequences for the civilian population have been devastating. There
have been attacks on hospitals, churches, mosques, and United Nations
bases," the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a
human rights report.
The 62-page report called for further investigations after finding
reasonable grounds to believe both parties in the conflict had violated
international human rights and humanitarian law.
Violence erupted in the world's newest nation in December, between troops
backing President Salva Kiir and soldiers loyal to his sacked deputy, Riek
Machar.
The fighting has exacerbated ethnic tensions between Kiir's Dinka tribe and
Machar's Nuer tribe, and the United Nations has warned that it risks
spiraling into genocide.
"The number of civilian casualties is high, likely in the thousands,
although to date no one has been able to establish an exact figure. A dismal
pattern of violence and destruction has emerged as the two parties to the
conflict gain and lose control of towns and surrounding areas," the report
said.
These violations included extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances,
rape and other sexual violence, arbitrary arrests and detention, targeted
attacks against civilians not taking part in the fighting, violence aimed at
spreading terror among civilians, and attacks on hospitals and U.N.
peacekeepers.
"In light of the widespread and systematic nature of many of the attacks,
and information suggesting coordination and planning, there are also
reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder,
rape and other acts of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and
imprisonment have occurred," found the report.
Several Security Council members on Friday called for the situation in South
Sudan to be referred to the International Criminal Court after receiving a
briefing on the conflict.
HATRED 'EXTREMELY DEEP'
The United States this week imposed sanctions on two people - one from each
warring party - and is pushing the U.N. Security Council to also "authorize
targeted sanctions against those who continue to undermine South Sudan's
stability," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said on
Tuesday.
Machar arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa earlier on Thursday to
meet Kiir, a rebel source said, as both sides faced strong international
pressure to negotiate to end the conflict.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous is due to brief the council on the
situation in South Sudan later on Thursday.
Hilde Johnson, head of the U.N. mission in South Sudan, told Reuters in Juba
on Thursday that the violence had "put the country back decades" and if the
fighting did not stop soon, the damage to the country could be
"irreversible."
"The hatred is already actually extremely deep and it's going to be a very
significant challenge to bridge those differences, to overcome them and to
build a nation," she said.
The Security Council needs to renew the mandate for the U.N. mission by
July. In December, it approved almost doubling the number of peacekeepers to
12,500 troops as violence worsened but so far, less than half of the 5,500
reinforcements have arrived.
The UNMISS report recommended: "Efforts to protect civilians must be
enhanced. UNMISS' capacity should be strengthened, notably the additional
troops authorized by the Security Council must be urgently deployed."
U.N. peacekeepers are protecting nearly 80,000 civilians at bases around the
country in "the first instance of any United Nations mission providing
protection to civilians facing imminent threat of physical violence on this
scale or for this length of time," according to the report.
However, it warned that the U.N. mission continued to receive reports that
when civilians leave the U.N. bases, they "have been subjected to
ill-treatment, sexually assaulted, arbitrarily detained, or even killed."
(Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Juba; Editing by Bernadette Baum)