Aid workers from various NGOs active in South Sudan arrive at Wilson airport in Nairobi, Kenya, July 13, 2016, from Juba.
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Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman said late Tuesday that the United Nations chief is alarmed by reports of the July 11 attack on a compound popular with foreigners in Juba.
In an incident on July 11 also reported by the Associated Press news agency, HRW said the government troops carried out an assault at a residential compound housing worldwide organizations, where they killed a local Nuer journalist, raped or gang-raped several foreign women, and beat and robbed people. They shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions, several witnesses told The Associated Press.
Human Rights Watch is now calling for increased sanctions and an arms embargo on South Sudan.
“We are deeply concerned that the United Nations peacekeepers were apparently either incapable or unwilling to respond to calls for help”.
“We have requested and are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the United Nations and demand swift corrective action in the event that these allegations are substantiated”.
Hannah Bryce, assistant head of the worldwide security department at London-based Chatham House, says that the South Sudanese authorities will need to provide, and be seen to provide, an appropriate response. “It was just so loud and I couldn’t hear and I think I kind of lost my wits at that point”.
Gian Libot – one of the foreign aid workers targeted during the attack – gives his testimony to Focus on Africa’s Hassan Arouni.
Juba-Fighting flared in South Sudan late on Sunday southwest of the capital between forces loyal to the president and those backing the opposition, after clashes last month raised fears of a slide back into civil war.
Kiir stressed that the government has not announced its objection to a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council for the deployment of a 4,000-strong protection force in Juba.
Deng did not say how many troops had been arrested. Both forces have been engaged in a civil war since December 2013. In that case, the report outlined a “combination of inaction, abandonment of post and refusal to engage”.
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. Dozens of other women and girls were also raped. “The U.N., the USA embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the U.N., contacting specific departments”, the woman told the Associated Press, which described in its report how no one aware of the event came to help the aid workers until much later when South Sudanese security forces entered the complex.
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In the wake of the rampage, Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations to investigate the factors “that are incapacitating their response to threats against civilians, limiting their operational effectiveness, and causing a crisis of faith in the mission”.
