UN panel accuses South Sudan officials of overseeing gang rapes

Abuses additionally embrace beheadings and other people being burned alive in a state within the Larger Higher Nile area, the fee says

A UN peacekeeping power has been deployed in South Sudan since 2011 [File: Andreea Campeanu/Al Jazeera]

United Nations specialists have known as on authorities in South Sudan to examine officers accused of overseeing systematic gang rapes, a few of whose victims had been women as younger as 9.

The Fee on Human Rights in South Sudan mentioned on Monday that it had cheap grounds to consider a county commissioner within the northern oil-rich state of Unity orchestrated gang rapes at a navy camp.

The documented abuses additionally concerned beheadings, rape victims pressured to hold the severed heads, victims being burned alive and days of brutal sexual assaults, the UN specialists mentioned in an announcement.

“Battle-related rape and sexual violence in Unity State has change into so systematic and is a direct results of impunity,” fee member Barney Afako mentioned.

Investigators say sexual abuse has been used as a weapon by all sides in South Sudan’s civil battle, which erupted in 2013 and triggered Africa’s largest refugee disaster for the reason that 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Within the abuses outlined in Unity, a number of witnesses mentioned the state official deliberate and ordered the assaults, which had been led by his deputy and adopted strikingly related patterns in several areas, in line with the UN assertion.

In response, Michael Makuei, South Sudan’s data minister and authorities spokesman, dismissed the fee’s assertion as a fabrication.

“They arrive and sit in resorts right here in Juba and fabricate these false reviews on South Sudan to make a dwelling,” he instructed the Reuters information company. “… I'm saying these are false reviews fabricated in opposition to the federal government.”

The fee mentioned the abuses lower throughout all political affiliations. It mentioned one governor within the opposition within the state of Western Equatoria was appointed to his put up regardless of being chargeable for the 2018 abduction, rape, torture and sexual slavery of greater than 400 ladies and women.

Lam Paul Gabriel, navy spokesman for Vice President Riek Machar’s Sudan Individuals’s Liberation Motion/Military in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), mentioned it had had no hand within the reported crimes.

“This report is misplaced as a result of they have no idea who's combating who in these areas the place these accusations are made,” Lam mentioned.

Makes an attempt to succeed in officers from Unity and Western Equatoria to remark had been unsuccessful.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 however two years later descended right into a spiral of brutal ethnic violence and revenge killings.

A peace settlement was signed in 2018, however 9.4 million folks would require humanitarian assist subsequent 12 months, representing greater than three-quarters of the inhabitants, in line with UN figures.

The UN Human Rights Council arrange the Fee on Human Rights in South Sudan in 2016 to watch rights and make suggestions on accountability.