Edmund Yakani, the director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, which campaigns for the protection of the rights of journalists and civil society activists in South Sudan, told CPJ that Christopher has not been charged and efforts by campaigners to visit him at the National Security Service headquarters had proved futile.
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United Nations peacekeepers ride in their armored personnel carrier (APC) as they patrol the perimeter of the protection of civilians site hosting about 30,000 people displaced during the recent fighting in Juba, South Sudan, July 22, 2016.
They are also accompanying women who venture out of the base to collect firewood and procure other items, said Haq.
“The President of the Republic of South Sudan, H.E. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, today met with his two deputies, to discuss some of the issues on peace implementation and some current developments in the country”.
More than 270 soldiers, officials said, died when forces loyal to Kiir clashed with pro-Machar soldiers before a ceasefire was declared.
Kiir removed Machar as first vice president, two weeks after the rival leaders’ forces clashed in the capital. The UN also released a report documenting a disturbing rise in cases of sexual violence in South Sudan within the past month, citing 120 cases so far.
“They were seeing it. Everyone was seeing it, ” he said.
A section of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) appointed Taban Deng Gai, minister of mining and SPLM-IO former chief negotiator as the acting vice president.
The rapes in the capital of Juba highlighted two persistent problems in the chaotic country engulfed by civil war: targeted ethnic violence and the reluctance by United Nations peacekeepers to protect civilians. The UN said 11,000 refugees were at one point staying in a shelter in Elegu, in northern Uganda, which had been designed for 1,000 people. “That’s where I was raped”, she said, and all six took part.
Civilian leaders in the United Nations camp have given estimates ranging from 27 to over 70 rapes from the time that women started venturing out for food.
The soldiers let Wechtuor go only after making a nearby young man whom she calls a “boy” choose between life or death: “They cut meat from the dead person and give it to the boy [sic]”.
SOUTH SUDANESE-born model Nykhor Paul is hoping to raise awareness of the ongoing conflict in her homeland, my spreading the message that “Black South Sudan lives matter too”.
“Both parties to the conflict have committed violations of global humanitarian law and gross human rights abuses, including mass killings, rape and other forms of sexual violence”, according to an Amnesty worldwide report published in August 2015. Then they caught my sister and my wife and they took them to the river and raped them. Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang told the AP they had not received any formal complaints about the rapes, therefore could not do anything to punish the perpetrators.
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Nyewutda, a 31-year-old woman who lost five of her friends in the attack on Toch Reah Island in September, said: “When the government forces came, we ran away with our cattle to Bul”.
