In 2003, Moses Otiti, a 15-year-old from Uganda, was walking in a group with his father when members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) ambushed them.
An interim human rights report released by the beleaguered U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan is being tentatively hailed by rights groups and observers who have pressured the mission to be more transparent with its findings.
South Sudan is taking the first steps in what promises to be a long process of healing the fractures that prompted more than five weeks of fighting, potentially leaving thousands of people dead and wounded and displacing 863,000 others.
As South Sudan’s fragile ceasefire threatens to unravel, human rights groups are calling on the U.N.’s mission there to make public its human rights reporting, a step they say will help lay the groundwork for reconciliation that never took place following independence in 2011.
When representatives of the warring factions of South Sudan signed an agreement to end hostilities at a luxury hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday, Jan, 23, fervent applause and some high-pitched ululations erupted from the audience.
The overwhelming job of providing relief to the more than half a million displaced and wounded in South Sudan may have gotten a little easier with the signing of a ceasefire agreement last night in Addis Ababa, which is set to go into effect today.
There are conflicts old and new crying for solution and reconciliation, not violence, with reasonable, realistic ways out.
South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has declared a state of emergency in two states, according to the government's official Twitter account.
Hours after forces ostensibly under Riek Machar’s command claimed victory in the strategic South Sudanese city of Bor, the former vice-president and once again rebel commander announced he would – after a week of postponement – send an envoy to upcoming peace dialogues in Addis Ababa with regional leaders and representatives of his one-time superior and comrade, President Salva Kiir.
The non-binding referendum in Abyei – where people voted overwhelmingly to join South Sudan – and the ensuing celebration, has brought little immediate resolution to the long-festering Abyei problem.
When Chris Bak returned two weeks ago to the disputed border town of Abyei, which voted this week on whether to join Sudan or South Sudan, he barely recognised it as the place where he grew up. “Everything is dirty,” he told IPS. “We were just going around and around, but we didn’t [recognise] this place.”
Mary K. loved to study and wanted to be an accountant. However, when she was 16 and in class six (grade eight), her father forced her to leave school to marry a 50-year-old man who paid him 60 cows.
On the last day of July, South Sudanese soldiers shot dead two unarmed women, Anyibi Baba and Ateil Rio. The killings were the latest in a pattern of grave violations against civilians by Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers fighting a Murle rebel group in Jonglei state.
Following fighting in the South Sudan state of Jonglei , the United Nations is trying to coordinate a humanitarian effort to help tens of thousands of people who have fled to the bush. The World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an operation to provide food for those who have escaped the conflict.
Despite the United Nations' "zero tolerance" policy against sexual violence, there has been a rash of gender-based crimes in several of the world's conflict zones, including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Northern Uganda, Somalia, the Central African Republic - and, more recently, in politically-troubled Egypt and Syria.
Since age 18, Zechariah Manyok Biar fought in the revolutionary army that won South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in July 2011. But now the 28-year-old is in exile from the country he helped liberate.
Akech B. loved to study and dreamed of becoming a nurse. But when she was 14, her uncle who was raising her forced her to leave school to marry a man Akech described as old and gray-haired. The man paid 75 cows as dowry for Akech. He was already married to another woman with whom he had several children.
Susana Apai Wani has lived as a widow for more than two decades since her husband, James Wani, was arrested in 1992 by a policeman who accused him of collaborating with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which was a rebel political movement at the time.
“My husband and older son, unable to cope with the war, became mentally ill. Two of my sons became child soldiers and an eight-year-old daughter was abducted – they were never to be seen again,” Mariamu Dong says, referring to the 21-year civil war between north and south Sudan, which are now separate countries.
“Our daughters are our only source of wealth. Where else do you expect me to get cows from?” asks 60-year-old Jacob Deng from South Sudan’s Jonglei state.