South Sudan Military Officers May Have Committed War Crimes

South Sudan Military Officers May Have Committed War Crimes
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (C) waves a walking stick as he rides in the back of a pickup truck in an advancing motorcade in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, on Sept. 21, 2017. Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images
Reuters
Updated:

NAIROBI–U.N. investigators said on Friday they had identified more than 40 South Sudanese military officers who may be responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It was a sharp departure from previous U.N. reports that documented crimes but not perpetrators.

Oil-rich South Sudan gained independence from neighboring Sudan in 2011 but slid into civil war in December 2013. More than 4 million people, a third of the population, have been uprooted by violence.

The investigators from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said their findings are based on interviews with hundreds of witnesses, satellite imagery and nearly 60,000 documents dating to the outbreak of the war.

Their report, released on Friday, makes the case for “individual command responsibility for widespread or systematic attacks on civilians” by senior military officers, including eight lieutenant generals, and by three state governors.

A government spokesman said they were willing to hold people to account for any crimes. “The government will prosecute anyone responsible for any crimes. This is a responsible government,” foreign affairs spokesman Mawien Makol told Reuters.

So far, there have been very few prosecutions of South Sudanese military or government officials for crimes against civilians.

The U.N. report details what it calls “appalling instances of cruelty against civilians who have had their eyes gouged out, their throats slit, or been castrated.” It said such violence occurred during five major battles between government troops and rebels in 2016 and 2017.

The report contains testimony from a mother who witnessed her son forced to rape his grandmother while his family was held hostage, and an 85-year-old woman who said she was gang-raped before watching the execution of her husband and son.

It also documents what commission member Andrew Clapham called “a clear pattern of ethnic persecution, for the most part by government forces who should be pursued for crimes against humanity”.