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UN Mission reports "widespread rights abuse committed by armed groups" in South Sudan

Xinhua, July 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has found evidence of "widespread human rights abuses," including abduction and sexual abuse of women and girls, allegedly committed by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and associated armed groups during the recent escalation of fighting in Unity State since late April, Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here Tuesday.

"Survivors of these attacks reported that SPLA and allied militias from Mayom County carried out a campaign against the local population that killed civilians, looted and destroyed villages and displaced over 100,000 people," Haq said at a daily news briefing here.

"Some of the most disturbing allegations compiled by UNMISS human rights officers focused on the abduction and sexual abuse of women and girls, some of whom were reportedly burnt alive in their dwellings," he said.

The UNMISS report said that there is a "new brutality and intensity" in the recent upsurge in fighting. It also said that the scope and level of cruelty that has characterized the reports suggests a depth of antipathy that exceeds political differences.

Fighting in South Sudan's Unity and Upper Nile states has displaced over 100,000 people over the last two months, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported in early June.

According to UNHCR, 60,000 South Sudanese have fled the country since the beginning of 2015, with half fleeing to Sudan, and 15, 000 to Ethiopia and Uganda.

This brings the total of South Sudanese refugees to 555,000, while 1.5 million people have been internally displaced since December 2013.

More than 650,000 people have been furthermore deprived of humanitarian aid as aid organizations were forced to leave areas affected by fighting.

These trends are largely due to the rise in fighting as well as food insecurity, as official estimates place the number of South Sudanese not having access to sufficient food at 3.8 million, more than a third of the country's 11 million-strong population. Endite