Sayeed Muhammad: A rights group yesterday accused South Sudan government and its allied militias of “war crimes” of “staggering brutality” during an offensive earlier this year.
Amnesty international’s report catalogued the testimonies of around 100 civilians who escaped the attacks, reports AFP.
It was prepared based on research following a government offensive on Leer and Mayendit counties in the northern Unity State between April and June.
“The offensive was characterised by staggering brutality, with civilians deliberately shot dead, burnt alive, hanged in trees and run over with armoured vehicles,” the global watchdog said.
The group also documented “systematic sexual violence”, rape and gang-rape as well as abductions of women and girls, and the deliberate killing of young boys and male infants.
The murders echo the type of brutality meted out to civilians that has characterised South Sudan’s war since the start.
The latest offensive, Amnesty said, began in April and continued until early July, “a week after the latest ceasefire was brokered on 27 June”.
That ceasefire cleared the way for the signing last week of another peace agreement between President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar aimed at ending the vicious five-year-old civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people, pushed millions to the brink of starvation and scattered refugees across East Africa.
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