Women are raped, people burnt.
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The report, released late Tuesday, also disputes that there was a coup attempt in December 2013 by former Vice President Riek Machar. Tens of thousands were killed, although the AU report said it wasn’t possible to state accurately how many. Ethnic Nuer were later rounded up in “an organized military operation that could not have been successful without concerted efforts from various actors in the military and government circles”, the report found. “The commission found that most of the atrocities were carried out against civilian populations taking no active part in the hostilities”, it said. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir (seated), flanked by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (2nd L), signs a peace agreement in South Sudan’s capital Juba, August 26, 2015.
The AU commission said it reached conclusions about who should face prosecution for crimes against humanity, but kept the names confidential.
People displaced by the current fighting between authorities & rebel forces in Bor queue for medical care at a clinic run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors With out Borders) arrange in a school building within the town of Awerial, South Sudan in January of 2014.
The AU commission was led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and began its work in March previous year, interviewing victims, witnesses and members of the government and opposition.
“As the realities of atrocities exposing, though series of denials and counter denials would likely surface, the report would however, partly contribute to smooth implementation of the signed peace agreement”, SSHURSA said in a release.
The AUCISS report, further stressed the human rights body, would be a significant toward establishing and strengthen the institutions of governance which will help prevent the documented atrocities and use of state’s machinery by individuals to dismantle South Sudanese socio-political fabrics as alluded in its numerous recommendations. One major criticism has been that the court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, is anti-African because it has focused largely on prosecutions of African figures. The nation divided along tribal lines – the Nuer community backs rebel leader Machar, while the President is from the Dinka tribe.
Most of the “indiscriminate” and “unlawful” killings of civilians or soldiers in Juba were, however, allegedly committed by element of South Sudanese security forces. “During this operation male Nuers were targeted, identified, killed on the spot or gathered in one place and killed”, the report said.
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The report cited “reasonable grounds to believe that acts of murder, rape and sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts of comparable gravity, outrages upon personal dignity, targeting of civilian objects and protected property, as well as other abuses, have been committed by both sides…”
