A young girl whose family fled the Boko Haram insurgency stands in front of a tent in a camp for internally displaced persons in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Boko Haram has abducted thousands of girls and forced them into unwanted marriages and enslavement. According to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), less than one percent of humanitarian aid is spent on combating gender-based violence in crises. Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, May 27 2019 (IPS)

It’s time to end sexual and gender-based violence once and for all, participants of a two-day conference said.

In Norway, United Nations agencies, governments and civil society convened for the first-ever thematic humanitarian conference to combat sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in humanitarian crises.

The conference, which brought together representatives from 100 nations and over 200 organisations and SGBV survivors, aimed to mobilise political and financial commitments as well as strengthen effective and multi-sectoral SGBV prevention and response.

“We cannot, and must not, pretend these atrocities are not taking place. Sexual and gender-based violence tears apart the very fabric of society, and inflicts lasting wounds on individuals and whole communities,” said Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

“Now is not the time to stand idly by. Now is the time for action,” she added.

Worldwide, more than one-third of all women have experienced physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. While boys and men are also affected, the risk is much higher among women and girls and is particularly exacerbated in humanitarian crises.

In Nigeria, while the kidnapping of the Chibok school girls gripped international headlines in 2014, Boko Haram has and continues to kidnap women and girls for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced marriage. In this dated picture, Nigerians gathered at Unity Fountain, in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Apr. 30, 2014 to call on the country’s government to act quickly to find the 276 schoolgirls who were kidnapped from Chibok secondary school in northeast Borno state on Apr. 14 by Islamist extremist group Boko Haram. Credit: Mohammed Lere/IPS

In Nigeria, while the kidnapping of the Chibok school girls gripped international headlines in 2014, Boko Haram has and continues to kidnap women and girls for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced marriage. A report by the Henry Jackson Society found that Boko Haram members would forcefully impregnate women in order to produce the “next generation of fighters.”

Nadia Murad, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s Goodwill Ambassador, was among thousands of Yazidi women who were kidnapped by the Islamic State.

Many are forced to be sex slaves, and reports found that IS even uses social media sites such as Facebook to sell Yazidi women as sex slaves.

While Murad was able to escape, an estimated 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are still enslaved.

While women like Murad are leading the fight against SGBV and are often the first responders in a crisis, funding is woefully inadequate.

According to the International Rescue Committee, less than one percent of humanitarian aid is spent on combating gender-based violence in crises.

However, as communities lose access to basic services and needs such as shelter, healthcare, and income, financial support and provision of services is of the utmost importance.

In 2019, an estimated 140 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. Of these, approximately 35 million are women and girls of reproductive age.

Participants in ‘Ending Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Humanitarian Crises’ conference reiterated the importance of listening to survivors to help guide action.

“When I meet survivors I ask them what could have been done to prevent what happened to you, and they tell me things like a stove. In South Sudan, [they said] we have to go out of the protected civilian site to go fetch wood and that’s when we get raped,” said UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten.

In South Sudan, at least 175 women and girls experienced sexual and physical violence between September and December 2018 alone. Of these cases, 64 were girls, some as young as eight years old.

Researchers from the UN Mission in South Sudan and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, found that most of the victims were attacked on roads as they traveled in search of firewood, food or water, commodities which have been limited since the start of the conflict in 2013.

One woman recounted her experience after being raped on three separate occasions while walking to or from food distribution sites, stating: “We women do not have a choice…if we go by the main road, we are raped. If we go by the bush, we are raped…we avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us. There is no escape—we are all raped.”

“We really need to listen to survivors. They have both a role to play in prevention and response,” Patten added, pointing to the need to address root causes of structural gender inequality and discrimination.

With regards to response, it is essential for survivors to receive health and psychosocial services as well as a safe space to heal, many said.

However, an increase in funding for SGBV prevention and response is sorely needed as well as support for local women’s organisations who are at the forefront of crisis response.

Recently, 350 Somali women leaders jointly called for zero tolerance for gender-based violence and the urgent passage of the Sexual Offences Bill which would be the country’s first dedicated SGBV-related legislation.

“We need to address the call for justice for survivors, we need to support women working closely with survivors,” said Somali Minister of Women and Human Rights Development Deqa Yasin Hagi Yusuf.

“We will return from this conference with even more energy to strengthen our legal and institutional framework to tackle SGBV,” she added.

The UN Population Fund’s Executive Director Natalia Kanem also stressed how crucial partnerships are and pledged to follow through with the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit’s commitment to provide 25 percent of funding to local and national responders by 2020.

“Support women and girls to rebuild their lives, to regain their dignity, and to feel safe and secure amidst crisis…Let the woman decide, let the girl decide,” Kanem said.

By the end of the conference, 21 donors committed 363 million dollars over the next two years.

“We are at a turning point. We have done something new, we thought out of the box, and I think we have all given something out of the ordinary. We all wanted this to work and we did,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway Ine Eriksen Søreide in her closing remarks.

“I am absolutely confident we will be able to sustain this momentum…we have the majority, and we can make the changes…now the hard work starts,” she added.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2019 (IPS)

Women and girls continue to face the brunt of violence in the northern region of South Sudan with persistently high and brutal levels of sexual violence, a new report found.

Despite the signing of a peace deal nearly five months ago, United Nations investigators have found an “endemic” rise in cases of sexual violence in South Sudan’s Unity State.

“There’s been very little accountability in South Sudan for what is chronic, endemic problem of sexual violence against women and girls,” said the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’ (OHCHR) spokesperson Rupert Colville.

“Virtually complete impunity over the years, as a result, very little disincentive for these men not to do what they’re doing,” he added at the launch of the report.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet also expressed concern over the widespread issue, stating: “The volatility of the situation in South Sudan combined with the lack of accountability for violations and abuses committed throughout Unity, likely leads armed actors to believe that they can get away with rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence.”

Between September and December 2018 alone, at least 175 women and girls experienced sexual and physical violence. Of these cases, 64 were girls, some as young as eight years old.

U.N. Missions in South Sudan (UNMISS) and OHCHR researchers found that most of the victims were attacked on roads as they traveled in search of firewood, food or water, commodities which have been limited since the start of the conflict in 2013.

One woman recounted her experience, stating: “We women do not have a choice…if we go by the main road, we are raped. If we go by the bush, we are raped…we avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us. There is no escape—we are all raped.”

The 30-year-old survivor was raped on three separate occasions, each time around the same location to or from food distribution sites in Bentiu.

Almost 90 percent of the women and girls were raped by more than one perpetrator and often over several hours, the report found.

The report also observed that many of the attacks were premeditated and organised, stating: “The ruthlessness of the attackers appears to be a consistent feature of sexual violence documented during this investigation.”

In another incident in November, a woman who was two months pregnant suffered a miscarriage after being gang-raped.

Survivors also described being beaten with rifle butts, sticks, and cable wires if they attempted to resist or after they were raped.

A 50-year-old survivor told investigators she was beaten after trying to keep armed men from taking her 25-year-old daughter.

“Some of them threw punches and kicks on me for not allowing them to take my daughter. Those armed men were just like my sons, but they were so cruel. They do not have mercy,” she said.

Among the factors that have contributed to the rise in attacks against women and girls is the large number of fighters on “standby” mode awaiting disengagement and withdrawal.

Though a peace agreement was signed in September 2018, the new transitional government will not be put into effect until May, leaving members of numerous armed forces in limbo.

“A lot of these young men who are heavily armed, are just waiting around…This is a very toxic mix, and there are also youth militia which some of these official groups ally with and you don’t know exactly who they are; they’ve been heavily involved as well,” Colville said.

President Salva Kirr of South Sudan. The United Nations has urged Kirr to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors of sexual violence in the northern region of the country. Credit: Elias Asmare/IPS

Impunity and the lack of accountability have also led to the normalisation of violence against women and girls, and both UNMISS and OHCHR have urged President Salva Kiir to carry out investigations and seek justice for survivors.

Upon hearing about reports of mass report, an investigation was carried out by a South Sudanese committee. However, they denied the allegations and declared that the rapes were “not a true story.”

While the current peace deal seems volatile, it is increasingly urgent for the new South Sudan to act and protect women and girls.

“Sadly, we have continued to receive reports of rape and gang rape in northern Unity since the beginning of this year,” Bachelet said.

“I urge the Government of South Sudan to take adequate measures – including those laid out in the peace agreement – to protect women and girls, to promptly and thoroughly investigate all allegations of sexual violence and to hold the perpetrators accountable through fair trials,” she added.

By Adam Bemma
JUBA, Aug 21 2014 (IPS)

Along the fertile banks of sub-Saharan Africa’s White Nile, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile River, a war veteran’s co-op is planting for a food secure future in South Sudan, a country potentially facing famine.

Wilson Abisai Lodingareng, 65, is a peri-urban farmer and founder of Werithior Veteran’s Association, or WVA, in Juba, South Sudan. The association is a group of 15 farmers ranging in age, with the youngest being a 25-year-old veteran’s son. This group of 15 farmers tends to a garden, located six kilometres outside Juba, South Sudan’s capital, where they grow nearly 1.5 hectares of vegetables.

“I have seven active members in the group, all former SPLA [Sudan People’s Liberation Army] troops. I call them when it’s time to weed the garden,” Lodingareng told IPS. “I visit once a day, each morning, to check the health of the crops and too see what’s ready for the market.”

Some of the other WVA members have been displaced from their homes and are now living inside the UNMISS, United Nations Mission in South Sudan, Protection of Civilians camp in Juba.

Since the conflict began Dec. 15, 2013 between the government forces of South Sudan President Salva Kiir and the rebel forces of former Vice President Riek Machar, 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes. Three-and-a-half million South Sudanese are suffering from emergency levels of food insecurity, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Lodingareng said obtaining a plot of land along the Nile River was difficult with many international investors vying for this prime agricultural real estate. It took him almost three years to acquire a lease from the community which owns the idle land.

So far this year he has transformed the field with long grass and weeds into a garden with leafy vegetables and herbs sprouting. WVA cultivates okra, kale, mulukhiyah (jute leaves) and coriander.

“These are short impact crops which grow quickly, within one to two months,” Lodingareng said. “Okra is harvested every three to four days.”

The philosophy behind the WVA garden is to see land as a resource not to be wasted. As Lodingareng looks around his garden he sees a future expansion into the surrounding land, also lying idle.

“I’m looking at expanding to grow food crops like maize, potatoes, carrots and eggplant,” he said. “The first year has been a struggle. The next year should be much better.”

Simon Agustino is the programme officer at Mennonite Central Committee, or MCC, in South Sudan.

“Wilson [Lodingareng] came to our office with a proposal asking for assistance. The veterans had no hope and no way to provide for their families,” Agustino told IPS. “People thought he was wasting his time with digging. But he didn’t give up.”

MCC provided him with some capital for leasing the land, the training of beneficiaries, fruit and vegetable production, farm supplies and tools as well to monitor WVA’s progress.

“Finally he got land and is now yielding and his crops which are being sold at the market. As a sign of improvement, more veterans are considering joining,” Agustino said.

According to Agustino, most SPLA veterans take to criminal activity after being de-commissioned, but Lodingareng wouldn’t turn to cattle raiding or using a weapon to rob and steal. He has a vision for the future of South Sudan.

“I did my part to put my country on the path to self-determination,” Lodingareng said. “Now my approach is to work hard. Me, I will do anything that can pull me out of poverty and improve my situation financially.”

Londingareng fought with the SPLA from 1985 to 2008, and when he wasn’t re-activated into the military six years ago he began to think back to his early days as an economics student at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.

“I took a course and wrote a paper on agriculture economics. I was taught that land is food and that crops share behaviour traits with humans,” he said.

While Lodingareng comes from the Toposa, a cattle-herding pastoralist tribe in the southeast of the country, his wife is Nuer, one of the country’s two biggest ethnic groups, along with Dinka, in South Sudan.

“We were hunted. I hid my wife in town and with help from MCC, I took her to Uganda.” he said. “I came back to find out people had broken into my house. It was completely ransacked.”

WVA veterans come from various tribes in South Sudan. Its work demonstrates that agriculture could be a way of bringing South Sudanese together, looking past tribal differences, and planting together this rainy season.

Lodingareng believes it’s never too late to take up the cause of agriculture, even while millions are displaced and the country is on the brink of famine.

“The political climate has discouraged many from planting this season,” he said. “But if everyone planted gardens things will improve.”

MCC is looking at ways to start a peace and reconciliation programme with the help of WVA. “He has many ideas on how to end the conflict,” Agustino said.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

The writer can be contacted on twitter @adambemma

Emily Deng hopes she will deliver her baby safely at Juba 3 POC camp, South Sudan. Dr. Julitta Onabanjo, regional director of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) East and Southern Africa Region, says humanitarian crises are reproductive health disasters, especially because pregnancy-related deaths tend to soar during this period. Courtesy: United Nations Population Fund

By Julitta Onabanjo
JUBA, May 19 2014 (IPS)

As with many conflicts and other humanitarian emergencies around the world, those who suffer the most are women, young girls and children. The current terrible crisis in South Sudan is no exception. 

When I visited the country recently, I met women and girls, some with babies strapped on their backs, living in very poor conditions in protection camps within United Nations bases in the capital city of Juba. Walking through the camps, I also met young people, many of whom are now seeing their dreams of a better life being shattered by the violent conflict.

Many shared their stories freely with me. What is clear is that the jubilant songs sung during the country’s independence only a few years ago have now been replaced by the voices of agony and anguish of families torn apart by the violence as well as the protracted political crisis since the early 1990s.

In a report released on May, 8 the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) noted that the “conflict has exacerbated the vulnerability of women and children in South Sudan to sexual violence.”  Sexual and gender-based violence is not new in South Sudan – but the scale has been exponential due to the conflict and the absence of protection for the most vulnerable, who are women and children. We all know that cases of gender-based violence are under-reported during times of peace, and much more so in conflict situations. Yet even one case of sexual violence is one too many.

In far flung camps, there are reports of rapists targeting women and girls as they attempt to fetch firewood, look for food or fetch water for their families. Some have been killed as a result and many are too afraid to report their violation.

Worse still, the ability of survivors of sexual violence to receive services during the precarious situation has severely diminished. Consequently, most incidents of sexual violence could not be reported to health actors, nor documented or verified through medical reports, says the UNMISS report.

And that is not all. Humanitarian crises are reproductive health disasters, especially because pregnancy-related deaths tend to soar during this period.

A South Sudanese woman receives a reproductive health kit after delivering her baby. Courtesy: United Nations Population Fund

South Sudan has the world’s worst maternal mortality ratio of 2,054 deaths per 100,000 live births.  Prior to the crisis, the country’s fertility rate was nearly seven children per woman. It is estimated that 80,000 pregnant women living in affected areas (and thus 2,800 births every month) will require care by the end of December 2014.

Furthermore, an estimated 12,000 women will likely experience complications and require care, while 4,000 births are likely to require emergency Caesarean sections. Without adequate care, this number could increase considerably.

As a result of the crisis, two thirds of the health facilities in the areas affected by the conflict are reportedly closed or operating at limited capacity. In Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity states, the state hospitals that usually provide emergency obstetric care services are not functional. Alternative facilities at the periphery have either been looted or destroyed and/or health staff members have fled due to insecurity.

There are very few skilled birth attendants or equipment available for comprehensive obstetric care. Pregnant women, who are cut off from basic services and healthcare, are therefore particularly vulnerable in this conflict situation.

But amidst the crisis there is considerable resilience and hope. At one U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA)-supported makeshift maternity tent I had the privilege to visit, I was humbled to meet international voluntary midwives who were working with minimum resources to ensure mothers could deliver their children safely.

As a woman and as a mother, I was moved to tears by the smile on a young woman’s face as she breastfed her newborn baby for the first time, in a  makeshift tent. It is our collective humanity that must prevail and make a difference in the lives of the women of South Sudan. We can’t afford to abandon them and leave them to their own devices.

There is an urgent need to support government and other actors to accelerate the provision of lifesaving maternal and neonatal health information and services, without which many pregnant women and their babies are at high risk of death or disability. We also need to address the gender-based violence taking place during this conflict, despite the challenge of reporting experienced by many survivors.

The world cannot afford to ignore what is going in South Sudan. It is a humanitarian tragedy unfolding right in front of our eyes.

Our hope is that the upcoming meeting of donors in Oslo will be able to generate the necessary resources to address the care and dignity of South Sudanese women and girls. We also hope that constructive political dialogue among all actors will speedily return the country to a path of peace that is desperately needed RIGHT NOW.

While the need to promote peace and security for overall development is urgent, ensuring care and dignity for each and every woman and young girl, those most affected in crisis situations, is equally urgent.

The innocent eyes of those women and girls I saw in the protection of civilian sites are on all of us. The question is, how long will we keep them on the edge?

Excerpt:

Thousands of displaced people camping under trees in Minkaman, northeastern South Sudan. They are among the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled during five months of fighting in the country. Credit: Andrew Green/IPS

By Andrew Green
JUBA, May 15 2014 (IPS)

It has not yet been a week, but South Sudan’s most recent ceasefire appears set to collapse, along with hopes that – after five months of fighting – the country might finally be on the path to recovery.

Late Friday, President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar met briefly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, to recommit to the cessation of hostilities agreement their representatives originally reached in late January.

That earlier deal also fell apart within days and the fighting continued across much of the country’s northeast. Thousands of people have since been killed and hundreds of thousands scattered.

In the days before the Addis Ababa meeting, Deng Chioh was one of the many people in Juba unconvinced a new ceasefire agreement would work. He said the anger in the country runs too deep.

“If peace is to come to South Sudan, it’s going to take a very long time. It cannot be done while the current leader is the head of the state,” he told IPS.

South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir Mayardit (in black hat), and former vice-president Riek Machar (right), before the conflict began. Credit: UN Photo/Tim McKulka

Last week’s signing ceremony was the first time Kiir and Machar have met since their latent political rivalry broke wide open on Dec. 15 when the former vice president walked out on a meeting of the ruling party.

Hours later fighting broke out in a Juba military barracks and Kiir quickly accused his former vice president of mounting a coup. The veracity of the accusation was inconsequential as fighting spread rapidly – first across the capital, and then much of the country.

On the first two nights of the December fighting, Chioh suffered through frantic phone calls from relatives and neighbours as they attempted to triangulate where the killings were happening.

By the third day, exhausted with worry, he and nine family members moved to a the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) base.

The site, known as U.N. House, is on the outskirts of Juba, in the shadow of Jebel Mountain – one of the few interruptions to the capital’s dully flat landscape.

Chioh said that soon after they stopped hearing from a handful of relatives who decided to remain in their homes, and he can only assume they were killed.

The Addis Ababa reunion followed increased pressure from regional and international actors to end the violence. Last week, the United States issued sanctions against a military leader on each side of the conflict and warned more could be in the offing.

Under the revived deal, the two sides agreed not only to freeze their troops within 24 hours, but to give humanitarian groups access to thousands of civilians caught in combat zones. UNMISS announced within hours of the signing that they were standing by to begin deliveries of “life-saving aid” if the ceasefire took hold.

There was suddenly cause to consider, not whether South Sudan could be saved, but how this deeply-divided country could be repaired.

The depths of these divisions were revealed in the days before the meeting, when UNMISS released a report documenting “gross violations of human rights” by both sides during the ongoing clashes, including the targeted killing, rape and kidnapping of innocent civilians.

There has been an ethnic cast to the fighting from the start, pitting Kiir’s Dinka community against Machar’s Nuer, and the violence against civilians has deepened distrust between the country’s different groups.

In one of the many horrific episodes, the rebels stand accused of murdering more than 200 civilians hiding in a mosque in the northern town of Bentiu, capital of Unity state. Nearly 80,000 people have now taken refuge at UNMISS bases, behind the protection of U.N. peacekeepers.

More than 10,000 people have crowded into U.N. House, which also hosts blocks of U.N. offices. From their windows, U.N. staffers can now peer out over a vast makeshift campsite, built mostly of plastic sheets, scrap metal and wooden planks.

U.N. House holds some of the earliest victims of the crisis, mostly Nuer from the surrounding neighbourhoods. They fled to the base as security forces conducted house-to-house searches during the height of the Juba clashes.

A boat of women and children arrives in Mingkaman, Awerial County, Lakes State, South Sudan. In less than a month close to 84,000 fleeing the fighting in Bor have crossed the river Nile to Awerial. Credit: Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/IPS

Among the testimonies UNMISS collected are stories of uniformed men storming through those communities, capturing and interrogating civilians in the Dinka language. “If a person questioned in this way admitted to being Nuer, could not speak Dinka or was able to speak Nuer, that person would be shot,” according to the report.

Members of the Dinka community harbour concerns about peace should Machar be invited back into any future government. There is no political solution that will salve all of the country’s wounds.

The only option is forgiveness, Reverend Bernard Oliya Suwa told IPS. And as soon as a ceasefire takes hold, it will be his task to convince Chioh – and countless others – to choose that path and attempt to reconstruct South Sudan. Suwa is the secretary general of the Committee for National Peace, Reconciliation and Healing.

The Committee pre-dates the conflict. Kiir created the body in April of last year and directed its five heads, culled from the country’s religious leadership, to address injustices committed during the southern rebels’ decades-long fight for independence from Khartoum.

Their plan, arrived at in early December, was to recruit county-level “peace mobilisers” to spend months in their communities gathering testimony and presenting it to local mediators. Grievances “of higher concern,” Suwa said, including complaints over resource allocation or large-scale atrocities, would be referred to state or national committees.

A mother and children walk amongst flooded shelters at the Tomping IDP camp. Credit: UN Photo/Isaac Billy

The committee’s plans have already been adapted to the recent violence. They would work with two other bodies, including a Parliamentary commission, to form a broader National Platform for Peace and Reconciliation. He acknowledges that after the recent fighting, “the level of mistrust in this country runs so deep,” but told IPS he believes the Committee members can help allay it. But only if there is peace. Which is why the renewed cessation of hostilities agreement “is a huge, huge relief. Knowing that we can go ahead and roll out our programmes.”

The ceasefire officially went into effect late Saturday night. It held less than seven hours. U.N. officials confirmed both sides spent Sunday morning trading fire in and around Bentiu.

By the time Kiir’s plane touched down in Juba later that afternoon to a crowd of people gathered to celebrate the peace deal, each camp was accusing the other of provoking the fighting. Those accusations have continued every day since.

A mother and children walk amongst flooded shelters at the Tomping IDP camp. Credit: UN Photo/Isaac Billy

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2014 (IPS)

After a week that saw a massacre inside a U.N. base and wide-scale ethnic-based slaughter in an oil-producing region, the international community is grappling with what, if any, options remain to save lives in South Sudan.

In a closed door meeting Wednesday, the Security Council was shown video from Bentiu, where between last Tuesday and Wednesday, rebels executed hundreds of civilians in a mosque and the town’s hospital.“You have a situation where civilians are taken out of a mosque and killed and people are calling on the radio for the rape of women of certain ethnicity." -- Philippe Bolopion

In a terrible harkening to the Rwandan genocide, the U.N. reports that after capturing the town, rebels commandeered a local radio station and broadcast messages urging supporters to take revenge on Dinkas and Darfuris by raping women from those communities.

In a statement, the members of the Security Council “expressed horror and anger at the mass violence in Bentiu” and condemned the Friday attack on a U.N. camp in Bor, where at least 48 of the 5,000 mostly-Nuer residents it was sheltering were killed by a heavily armed mob that opened fire after breaking into the compound.

“The members of the Security Council strongly reiterated their demand for an immediate end to all human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law, and expressed their readiness to consider appropriate measures against those responsible,” the statement added.

The “measures” will likely entail targeted sanctions against officials linked to atrocities like those in Bentiu and Bor.  On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch publicly called on the Council to “impose sanctions on individuals in both government and opposition who are responsible for grave abuses.”

Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama opened the door to travel bans and the freezing of assets of military and political leaders in South Sudan, but administration officials have yet to name individuals.

In many cases, the threat of U.S. action is enough to scare commanders, but U.N. sanctions would go farther in South Sudan, says Philippe Bolopion, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch.

“U.S. sanctions are a welcome development but a lot of the leaders involved in the current violence have bank accounts in neighbouring countries – U.S. sanctions alone would not be enough,” said Bolopion. “U.N. sanctions send a powerful message to the people on the ground that they will have to pay a price for their crimes.”

Violence in the world’s youngest country broke out in December, when gunfire erupted in capital, Juba, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and breakaway factions of the SPLA that claim allegiance to former vice-president Riek Machar, himself sacked by Kiir during a putsch in July.

Kiir is an ethnic Dinka, Machar a Nuer, and the conflict, though it revolves in essence around unresolved questions of power, oil money and politics, has split the country along ethnic lines.

In December, the Security Council authorised 5,500 additional peacekeepers to assist the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), but bureaucratic wrangling, disputes among member states and an overstretched Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) have seen fewer than 700 arrive by April.

Should all 12,500 mandated “blue-helmets” deploy in short order, it is unclear if they’d be capable of doing much outside of bases where they’ve sheltered tens of thousands since December. But even this capability is called into question by the attack in Bor.

“This is not what the mission was designed for, this is not what the compounds were designed for,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General, told reporters.

Regional solution

The Security Council expressed support for the African Union’s Commission of Inquiry in South Sudan, though that effort has been slow to begin. This month, the commission announced it would meet with regional leaders to discuss the conflict, including Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, both under indictment by the International Criminal Court.

The commission will also meet with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, whose troops have been fighting alongside South Sudanese government forces – even as Ugandan representatives, as part of the regional bloc IGAD, attempt to broker peace at increasingly futile negotiations in Addis Ababa.

On Jan. 23, those talks saw the signing of a cessation of hostilities agreement, only for it to be broken within hours. Between periods of convalescence, both sides have fought continuously since.

“We see that neither party is ready to, in any way, cease the hostilities,” Herve Ladsous, U.N. peacekeeping chief, told reporters after the Council session.

“The agreement on that, which was signed exactly to this day three months ago, has never been implemented. They do not give indication that they want to sincerely participate in the peace talks,” said Ladsous.

At the U.N., there was a sense that the executions and wanton murders in Bentiu had jarred delegates accustomed to a slow-burning but nonetheless deadly civil war, one that could always be addressed tomorrow, or the next week.

The Council quickly asked that the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights send human rights officers to Bentiu and launch an investigation there.

“You have a situation where civilians are taken out of a mosque and killed and people are calling on the radio for the rape of women of certain ethnicity… we have reached a turning point in the crisis where all bets are off,” Bolopion told IPS.

Despite signs of life at the Security Council, the solution in South Sudan likely will have to come from regional leaders, who until now have expressed neither neutrality nor a willingness to apply real pressure on Kiir and Machar.

IGAD has announced its intentions to replace Ugandan soldiers with a regional force, but that plan too has been slow in materialising and wouldn’t necessarily allay concerns over impartiality.

“These sanctions could help but they are not going to solve the problem,” said one high-ranking human rights official who spoke to IPS on the condition of anonymity. “I think the big players at the U.N. realise that it’s key for the regional powers to be more active and do the right thing.”

“IGAD is key and the neighbours are key, if they don’t solve it politically, it will get much worse,” the source added.

There are growing concerns that South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is replicating some of the oppressive characteristics of Sudan’s regime. But freedom fighters say it was not what they fought for. Pictured here children celebrate South Sudan’s second birthday in July 2013 in Juba. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
JUBA , Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

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.

The former civil servant from the South Sudanese Ministry of Roads and Bridges wrote opinion pieces critical of the government that were published on the Paris-based Sudan Tribune’s website. Biar was forced to flee South Sudan in December 2012 after receiving information that members of the country’s security forces were planning to kill him.

“If there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom, and we were fighting for freedom,” Biar told IPS by telephone from an undisclosed location. “What is disturbing to me is that we are even worse than the government in Khartoum.”

Biar said he met with agents from the National Security Service as well as the police and asked for protection. But he finally decided to leave the country after a lack of progress in the investigation into the threats against him.

Biar believes that this inaction proves that the culprits are connected to people close to President Salva Kiir. He added that he thinks an “influential” but “small group” inside the government is carrying out attacks on critics, against Kiir’s wishes. He said they are acting in their own self interest in maintaining their positions by ensuring that Kiir is not replaced due to popular discontent.

“They are people who think that they are protecting the president. They are people who think that the failure of South Sudan would mean the failure of the president and therefore the loss of their privilege,” Biar said.

There are growing concerns that South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, is replicating some of the oppressive characteristics of Sudan’s regime amid reports of harassment and attacks against journalists, government critics and aid workers.

The United Nations has repeatedly urged South Sudan’s government to stop security forces from attacking journalists and activists, harassing aid workers, and killing civilians.“If there is no freedom of speech, there is no freedom, and we were fighting for freedom.” -- Zechariah Manyok Biar, former civil servant from the South Sudanese Ministry of Roads and Bridges

“UNMISS is deeply disturbed by reports of threats, intimidation, harassment and attacks against journalists, civil society and human-rights activists,” Hilde Johnson, head of the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), told reporters in the capital, Juba, in February.

Johnson called for “accountability for human rights violations committed by the security forces.” She said the government should release the results of a promised investigation into the Dec. 4, 2012 massacre of 13 civilians in Jonglei state allegedly by government soldiers. She also urged the government to prosecute those responsible for the Dec. 5, 2012 murder of journalist Isaiah Abraham, an outspoken critic of the government.

Government spokesman Barnaba Marial Benjamin told reporters in Juba that authorities were investigating Abraham’s killing. But he denied that last year’s massacre of civilians in Jonglei ever took place, and said journalists, aid workers and activists were free to do their work in South Sudan.

“I believe our human rights record is going well, we are very transparent about it,” Benjamin insisted.

However, two UNMISS human rights officers were detained in January while investigating threats against journalists.

“It is imperative that our mandate and diplomatic immunities are respected fully,” Ariane Quentier, a spokesperson for the mission, told IPS. “The government has assured UNMISS that they will fully respect the human rights mandate of the mission and enable its work.”

In a February report, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted attacks or incidents on aid workers accessing insecure areas rose by 48 percent in 2012 from the previous year. Incidents include the beating of 61 staff members, the arbitrary arrests of 78 aid workers, and the seizure of 97 vehicles. Eighty- five percent of the incidents were carried out by “state actors”, according to OCHA.

But Benjamin claimed the government has not been made aware of these cases. “I don’t think that is happening in the Republic of South Sudan,” he said.

Chase Hannon, who worked from 2010 to 2012 as a security advisor to a group of 150 non-governmental organisations in South Sudan, told IPS that the true number of incidents is probably far higher as NGOs often do not report them, as they fear a backlash.

Hannon said physical attacks by security forces are commonplace and often involve weapons. They included the beating of the country director of “a large international NGO” with the butt end of an AK-47. Two country directors and one deputy director left South Sudan in 2012 due to concerns about their personal safety, he said.

He responded “dozens of times during the past two years” to NGO staff being detained, he added.

“Nearly all of South Sudan’s security forces were responsible for these incidents at one time or another,” Hannon said, citing the police, army, National Security Service, and the presidential and vice-presidential security details among others.

“The large number of units responsible for law enforcement – often with unclear but overlapping mandates – made dealing with these incidents much more difficult.”

Insecurity in South Sudan has created a risky environment for investors, according to Steven Wondu, the country’s auditor general. He told IPS the government “lacks the ability to protect lives and property”, and businessmen face the risk of being “beaten up,” while there is impunity for perpetrators of violence.

But Wondu said problems such as poor governance and a lack of rule of law were to be expected in a country that recently emerged from a 22-year-long civil war. South Sudan is currently one of the poorest countries in the world, and has a largely illiterate population and limited infrastructure.

“We are going to have a very high rate of political risk for a very long time,” he said in an interview in Juba.

Wondu said he expected the security and economic situation to improve slowly as South Sudan demobilised many of its security forces, based on a recommendation he made to the government.

“The security sector in general draws a disproportionately large portion of the budget leaving very little for development efforts,” he said. “Everybody knows that something has to be done about the structure of the security services.”

Wondu said the bloated security sector is partly the result of a policy of incorporating anti-government militias that were left in South Sudan following the civil war in which Sudan armed proxy forces. He said the strategy was necessary to “buy peace” but added that it “makes command and control very difficult.”

“Are we actually getting security or are we getting more insecurity?” he asked.