“A surge of people, more than 11,000, many of them from the Nuer tribe, have crossed into Gambella during the past week, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in that country to more than 292,000”.
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Neither of the two men nor members of their immediate families are among the half-dozen South Sudanese officials facing the global sanctions imposed previous year. Kenya has over 90,000 South Sudanese refugees.
“The leaders of South Sudan’s warring parties manipulate and exploit ethnic divisions in order to drum up support for a conflict that serves the interests only of the top leaders of these two kleptocratic networks and, ultimately, the global facilitators whose services the networks utilise and on which they rely”.
He also challenged the government for threatening to sue in court The Sentry organization, saying the report implicated President Kiir and his family members by their names and not the government.
Contrary to perceptions that the conflict is rooted in an ethnically tinged feud between Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar that first erupted in 2013, the report said, the real struggle is over control of the country’s vast mineral and oil resources.
The publishers have said that authorities did not specify when it would be able to resume publication.
Ban said he would report to the council in October on whether South Sudan’s government is cooperating with the United Nations on the deployment of the regional force. About 300 people a week have been crossing into Kenya, which now has over 90,000 South Sudanese refugees.
Another 1.6 million people are displaced inside South Sudan.
The move will add to concerns by rights groups about media freedoms in South Sudan.
AWEIL, South Sudan (AP) – More than one million refugees have fled South Sudan’s ongoing civil war, overwhelming aid agencies and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
A United Nations human rights commission said on Thursday it was concerned by intimidation of civil society activists, harassment of journalists, sexual violence and other rights abuses in South Sudan.
United Nations’ secretary-general Ban Ki-moon recently launched an “independent special investigation” into harrowing allegations that UN peacekeepers did not respond to prevent the abuse, rape and killings of several civilians and foreigners in South Sudan’s war-torn capital. On Thursday the United States threatened to push for an arms embargo against the Juba government should it block the formation of the force.
Sentry said the report followed a two-year undercover investigation to look into the financing of African conflicts.
The UNHCR has called on donors to provide 701 million USA dollars for South Sudan refugee operations, of which 20 percent has been funded. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Washington will support an embargo if Kiir’s government does not implement its commitments.
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“South Sudan needs more, not fewer, independent and critical voices”.
