A new investigation into the conflict in South Sudan has revealed horrific atrocities committed by both parties to the conflict, with ethnically motivated attacks on civilians constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said in a report released today.
Nowhere Safe: Civilians Under Attack in South Sudan documents first-hand accounts from survivors of massacres, victims of sexual abuse, and witnesses to a conflict that has forced over one million people to flee their homes and driven the world’s youngest country to the brink of a humanitarian disaster.
The report catalogues human rights abuses committed by the rival forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President Riek Machar and their respective allied militias, since the conflict erupted in mid-December 2013. Civilians have been systematically targeted in towns and villages, in their homes, as well as in churches, mosques, hospitals and even UN compounds where they had sought refuge. In some of these places Amnesty International researchers found skeletons, and decomposing bodies being eaten by dogs. Elsewhere they discovered dozens of mass graves, including five in Bor containing 530 bodies. Everywhere they saw looted and burned down homes, destroyed medical facilities, and ransacked food humanitarian aid stores.
