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All parties to South Sudanese conflict guilty of human rights abuses: UN report

Xinhua, January 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

A UN report published Thursday found that all parties to the ongoing South Sudanese conflict have committed widespread human rights violations and abuses since hostilities broke out in the African nation two years ago.

With violence largely perpetrated by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), the joint UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report said that fighting has only intensified since 2013, particularly in the middle and second half of last year.

Hundreds of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and indiscriminate attacks against civilians are documented in the comprehensive report, which detailed some 280 cases of conflict-related sexual violence including gang-rape, sexual slavery and forced abortion.

As of December 2015, between 13,000 and 15,000 child soldiers have also been forcibly recruited mainly, but not solely, by opposition forces.

"Despite the severity of the human rights and humanitarian law violations perpetrated by both sides to the conflict, there are no tangible accountability mechanisms beyond the rhetoric of the main belligerents," the report stated.

According to findings, very few places in conflict-affected areas are secure amid targeted attacks against traditional safe havens such as places of worship, hospitals and United Nations bases.

"The constant attacks on women, the rape, enslavement and slaughter of innocents, the recruitment of thousands upon thousands of child soldiers, the deliberate displacement of vast numbers of people in such a harsh and poverty-stricken country, these are abhorrent practices that must be halted," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein in a statement.

After its foundation in 2011, South Sudan descended into civil strife in December 2013. A peace deal reached last August has largely failed to abate the endemic violence affecting the lives of countless civilians living in conflict areas. Endit