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Dozens of children killed during clashes in S. Sudan: UN

Xinhua, November 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations has declared that dozens of children have been killed in South Sudan during clashes between the South Sudanese warring parties in October.

"At least 80 civilians were reportedly killed in Leer County alone, including at least 57 children," UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday in a report.

"During October, clashes in southern and central Unity intensified with grave consequences for civilians", the report said, noting that "use of sexual violence as a weapon of war was also reported, with more than 50 cases of rape."

According to the report, thousands of people were forced to flee in search of safety, protection and assistance, including about 6,000 people who arrived in the Bentiu Protection of Civilians site.

The resumption of hostilities forced humanitarian partners to withdraw from several locations, leaving some 250,000 people without access to humanitarian assistance, it said.

Since the eruption of violence in South Sudan, reports of regional and international organizations have proved that children were the most affected categories by the conflict between the South Sudanese warring parties.

Earlier, the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development in Africa (IGAD) accused the South Sudanese armed groups of forcibly recruiting nearly 1000 children in Upper Nile State.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, pointed out in a recent report the atrocities committed against children in South Sudan, saying that boys were castrated and left to bleed to death and girls, as young as eight, were gang raped and murdered.

According to the UNICEF, around 13,000 children have been recruited since the fighting broke out in South Sudan, while at least 129 children were killed during battles at the oil-rich Upper Nile and Unity states last May.

South Sudan was plunged into violence in December 2013 when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Riek Machar.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension.

The clashes have killed thousands of South Sudanese and forced around 1.9 million to flee their homes. Endit