But as the civil war looks set to resume, government soldiers victimize women every day.
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The UN confirmed at least 120 cases of sexual violence have occurred in Juba since civilians fled their homes following fighting which led to at least 300 deaths at the beginning of July.
They are also accompanying women who venture out of the base to collect firewood and procure other items. Two of the victims died from their injuries.
Dozens of women and girls have reportedly been raped by South Sudanese government soldiers near a United Nations compound in the country’s capital, Juba. “They said, ‘This one belongs to me, this one belongs to me, ‘” she added. “I was less than 100 meters away and I saw the [private security guards], and even the United Nations police at the main gate”. It plunged into civil war two years later after President Salva Kiir accused his influential deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.
The incident happened on 8 July, the eve of the fifth anniversary of South Sudan’s independence; at the start of an eruption of violence which has forced many people to seek shelters in the All Saints Anglican Cathedral and other Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. “I am not viewed as South Sudanese”. “Then they burnt the houses”. Over 10,000 additional displaced persons are estimated to have fled to United Nations bases for protection from the recent fighting.
“Gruesome atrocities are being committed daily, civilians targeted and killed, women raped, homes looted and destroyed”.
“The South Sudanese government must ensure the immediate release and safe return of abducted women and girls to their communities, and support the speedy establishment of the Hybrid Court for South Sudan to prosecute those who bear the gravest responsibility”, said Lama Fakih.
All witnesses and survivors interviewed said the soldiers who attacked them were wearing army camouflage. In a country that has only 200km of paved road, ongoing fighting and restrictions on internal flights have meant that agencies can not travel freely to deliver help, and can not restock their bases across the country with basic supplies needed to support operations and materials needed for humanitarian projects.
“When the U.N.is moving, (the government soldiers) just stop the women and tell them to sit down”, she said. A United Nations agency warehouse with millions of dollars of food was looted by otherwise unidentified “armed gunmen”.
Since the renewed violence between Machar’s fighters and government troops, Machar has been in hiding. And even those women who have received food still take the unsafe journey to buy food at the market. “She was crying for help”, said one unnamed eyewitness to the gang rape of a woman in public. SPLA soldiers zip back and forth in pickup trucks or sit lazily under trees.
“I saw the men taking their pants off and the ladies crying inside”, said a witness.
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) continued “to receive deeply disturbing reports of sexual violence” in South Sudan, and stepped up patrol to protect civilians in the world’s youngest country, a UN spokesman told reporters here Wednesday.
“To put this in context, more refugees have arrived in Uganda in the past three weeks than during the entire first six months of 2016, when 33,838 came there in search of safety”, Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva.
It’s unclear if government soldiers rape women due to their ethnicity. “We have to kill her”, she says. “Everyone in the compound deserves what we have done to you”.
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The UN peacekeepers “who were up [in the guard tower] could see me when they were raping me”. “The status quo is simply not enough”, said Kate Phillips-Barrasso, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at the International Rescue Committee.
