According to Power, the USA embassy did respond to distress calls from the compound and coordinated a response with South Sudanese government officials.
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The UN body noted that arrivals of South Sudanese fleeing their country after an outbreak of fresh fighting in the capital, Juba, had peaked at “more than 8,000 in one day” last month.
The immediate former First vice President of South Sudan, Riek Machar, has been challenged to return to the capital of Juba if he is committed to promoting peace in the world’s youngest nation.
One female aid worker interviewed by the Associated Press said a soldier pointed an AK-47 at her and demanded she have sex with him. The soldiers specifically targeted Americans, accusing them of supporting the rebels.
“With refugees fleeing South Sudan in their thousands, surrounding countries are straining under the weight of large numbers of displaced people and critically underfunded operations”, UNHCR said in a statement.
The soldiers then pulled people out one by one.
For about an hour, soldiers beat the American and fired bullets at his feet and close to his head.
In one incident, government soldiers rampaged through a hotel compound “where they killed a prominent journalist, raped or gang raped several global and national staff of (aid) organisations, and destroyed, and extensively looted property”, the group said.
A report on the July assault put together by the owner of the Terrain hotel complex charged that at least five women were raped while others suffered mock executions, beatings, and looting.
“We kill you! We kill you!” the soldiers shouted, according to a Western woman in a bathroom.
What’s the point of sending in more United Nations troops if they have no will to intervene?
“You tell your embassy how we treated you”, they said. “All refused to go”, said an American man who alerted United Nations staff of the attack after being released early from the compound.
Eventually, South Sudanese security forces entered the Terrain and rescued all but three Western women and around 16 Terrain staff.
The U.N. and USA embassies are accused of ignoring desperate pleas help, witnesses said.
Distributed by APO on behalf of U.S. Department of State.
Government Spokesperson Michael Makuei said on Sunday in Juba that President Kiir ordered establishment of cantonment sites for the opposition troops in Equatoria, Bar-el-Ghazel and Upper Nile regions.
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The U.S. embassy, which also received distress calls during the attack, “was not in a position to intervene”, Department of State spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday, though it apparently passed along the information to South Sudanese officials.
