Citing witnesses and victims, the United Nations reported that besides being sexually assaulted, women and girls were also “robbed of their belongings, beaten up and verbally abused by SPLA soldiers and other security officers”.
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“We are asking for a real peacekeeping force”, said Angelo Kassiano, 36, a Sudanese-American civil engineering student at the University of Nebraska, who traveled from Lincoln, NE to Manhattan this week. “If you are not protecting civilians, you are not a soldier, and it’s not a country”. They fired bullets at his feet and close to his head. “They would shoot up at the ceiling and say, ‘Do you want to die?’ and we had to answer ‘No!'” Eventually, he was told to leave. He made his way to the nearby United Nations compound and appealed for help.
The four-hour assault was brought to light in an Associated Press report Monday, in which several witnesses recounted the rampage by South Sudanese soldiers and lack of response.
The soldiers then pulled people out one by one. The tribal scars on his forehead made it obvious he was Nuer, the same as opposition leader, Riek Machar. One of the women said security advisers from an aid organization had told them they would never be the target of an attack since they were foreigners.
During the attack on the Terrain, several survivors told the AP that soldiers specifically asked if they were American. You’re helping the rebels.
“A year after South Sudan’s leaders signed a peace deal, civilians are dying, women are being raped, and millions of people are afraid to go home”, said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
Trudeau added that the U.S. Embassy was not in a position to intervene in the attack, but she said after receiving reports, the embassy “called the people who were best poised to go out and make it stop, which were the National Security Services and the presidential guard”.
The U.S. Embassy, which also received requests for help during the attack, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
At 4:33 p.m., a Quick Reaction Force was informed; however it wasn’t until 6:52 p.m. -more than two hours after first the first message-that the U.N. Department of Safety and Security (DSS) declared it would not be sending a team.
Meanwhile, the Western woman who told her story to NPR doesn’t have much faith in another United Nations investigation or report.
The spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said late Tuesday that the United Nations chief is alarmed by the July 11 attack on a compound popular with foreigners in Juba.
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State Department Press Director Elizabeth Trudeau would not say whether the attackers specifically assaulted Americans due to their nationality, telling reporters during the department’s press briefing Monday that she “is not in a position to say any particular nationality was singled out”. “We have called for accountability for those who are involved in the violence”. “The U.N., the USA embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the U.N., contacting specific departments”, said the woman raped by 15 men.
