South Sudanese security forces have carried out acts of torture, shootings and sexual violence against civilians in the course of a disarmament operation in the country, said Amnesty International today (3 October), as it published a new report on the issue.

 

Amnesty researchers, who recently travelled to some of the most remote villages in Pibor County in the south-east of Jonglei State, interviewed scores of people who described acts of torture and abuse committed against civilians, including Children's rights as young as 18 months, in addition to having their property looted and crops destroyed.

 

Researchers spoke to a woman whose brother was shot dead by someone believed to be an auxiliary police officer in front of their home, and to two men who were ambushed and shot by soldiers. None of the men who were shot had been armed.

 

The abuses by the South Sudan Army (known as the SPLA) and the South Sudan Police Service Auxiliary Force (SSPS) have taken place during Operation Restore Peace, instigated by the government in March. Amnesty has documented credible reports of rape and attempted rape by SPLA forces. One elderly woman explained how a soldier raped her daughter while other soldiers were beating her and her granddaughter with large sticks. Her granddaughter was left unconscious.

 

Civilians told Amnesty that in many villages, soldiers had returned to the area two or three times to disarm the population. In Thangajon village, for example, soldiers came twice in July and once in August.

 

K.E., a mother of four, described how she and five other Women's rights's rightss rights's rights's rights's rights were beaten and had their heads submerged in water. She said: “I was at home with five other Women's rights's rightss rights's rights's rights's rights and our Children's rights. They asked us to give guns and we said we didn’t have guns and we were beaten with sticks. They took us to pools behind our homes. One soldier stepped on my neck to push my head down and one stepped on my back so I couldn’t jump out. My brother’s wife was unconscious.”

 

Amnesty is calling on the South Sudanese authorities to carry out independent and impartial investigations into the allegations and to properly monitor the disarmament process. Amnesty is aware of only five soldiers who have been detained in Pibor County for allegedly committing rape and murder; however, the lack of a judge advocate and civil prosecutor and judge in Pibor means that investigations and trials have not proceeded.

 

Amnesty International Africa Director Audrey Gaughran said:

 

“Far from bringing security to the region, the SPLA and the police auxiliary forces have committed shocking human rights violations and the authorities are doing very little to stop the abuse.

 

“The authorities have accepted that individuals are guilty of these violations and claim that it is not illustrative of the behaviour of the SPLA as a whole, but this cannot be used to justify these violations or the failure to deal with them properly.

 

"The security forces committing these horrific acts of violence have to be fully held to account.”

 

Amnesty is also calling on the United Nations Mission in South Sudan to step up its efforts to protect civilians, including by deploying peacekeepers in areas where there is significant potential for violations by the SPLA.

 

Note to editors

For photographs of people affected by the violence detailed in the Amnesty report, see: http://bit.ly/QEW5EX