UN Rights Chief ‘Very Concerned’ About Fighting in South Sudan
By Jennifer M. Freedman – Aug 26, 2011 7:43 AM ET
The United Nations’ top human-rights official said she’s “very concerned” about fighting in South Sudan that has left hundreds dead and called on the country’s government to restore security and protect civilians.
Fighting between the Murle and the Lou Nuer communities in Uror County, Jonglei state, has resulted in at least 600 deaths, more than 850 wounded, the kidnap of more than 200 children and the burning of more than 7,900 houses and left as many as 26,000 displaced since Aug. 19, according to a statement issued today in Geneva by the office of High Commissioner Navi Pillay.
Hilde F. Johnson, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, said on Aug. 22 that a cattle raid by members of the Murle ethnic group four days earlier was the “first large- scale attack” since the country’s July 9 independence from Sudan. The violence in Jonglei was in retaliation for a previous attack by the Lou Nuer group on Murle communities in late June, before independence, she said.
This year has been the most violent in South Sudan since the end of a two-decade civil war with the north in 2005, with 2,368 civilians dying in rebel attacks and ethnic violence, including cattle raids, as of July 9, compared with 940 last year, according to the UN.
Pillay was “shocked and outraged” to learn about an Aug. 20 attack on an official of the UN mission in South Sudan who is also her representative in the country, according to today’s statement. Benedict Sannoh was “severely assaulted in a hotel in Juba by around 12 South Sudan police officers who beat, kicked and punched him in a sustained fashion,” the UN said. He was then detained for several hours before being released and taken to a UN hospital, where he remained for five days.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer M. Freedman in Geneva atjfreedman.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling.
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