The Police Administration has also requested the UN to allow it to send a three-man team to also look into the claims.

In a statement released after news of the allegations broke, the Police Administration conveyed “its fullest cooperation and support to investigate the alleged sexual exploitation and abuse case.”

The statement added that “the Police Administration has requested the UN to permit a three-member team to be immediately deployed into the mission area for a better understanding of the incident.”

The unit in question alleged to have engaged in the sexual misconduct has also been recalled, according to a statement from the UN Mission.

The UN started an investigation into the conduct of the officers after reports that they were having transactional sex with women living at one of the protection camps, with gifts or favours given in exchange for the encounters.

Some UN peacekeeping efforts have come under fire over reports of similar acts of sexual misconduct.

In the last quarter of 2017, the UN revealed that it had received 40 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse were made against United Nations peacekeeping missions, agencies, funds and programs and implementing partners.

Of the 40 accusations, 15 were reported from peacekeeping operations, 17 came from UN agencies, funds and programs, while eight were reported by implementing partners.

Find below the full police statement

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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A report by UN human rights investigators says that 40 officials may be individually responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It says civilians have been tortured and mutilated, and villages destroyed on an industrial scale.

The conflict between government factions has continued in South Sudan despite a peace deal signed in 2015.

The UN investigators collect evidence for use in future war crimes trials and the report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Of the 40 senior officials identified as potentially responsible for atrocities, five are colonels.

But the court has still not been set up because South Sudan’s parliament has not yet approved it.

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Source: BBC

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The incident in the capital, Juba, last July resulted in a UN report which accused UN peacekeepers of failing in their duty to protect civilians.

It happened as rival forces in the civil war clashed in the city.

The soldiers’ lawyer said the allegations were untrue, Reuters news agency reports.

The incident happened in a rebel-controlled area, he added

Peace efforts have failed to bring an end to the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict, which has seen forces loyal to President Salva Kiir fighting troops who back former Vice-President Riek Machar.

The trial concerns an attack on the Terrain Hotel, home to aid workers from a number of international organisations.

Its manager, Mike Woodward, has been giving evidence at the military court in Juba, Reuters reports.

Between 50 and 100 soldiers entered the compound, looted the place and then raped five women, he is quoted as saying.

The defence lawyer says the compound was in a rebel-held part of the city, implying that government troops could not have been responsible.

Some of the victims have given harrowing testimony to the BBC. They spoke of what had happened to them and said their calls for help from the UN had gone unanswered.

A UN investigation backed their claims that peacekeepers had refused to respond when the compound was attacked.

The incident happened during three days of fighting in which at least 73 people were killed, including more than 20 internally displaced people who had sought UN protection. Two peacekeepers also died.

The government has been under pressure to tackle sexual violence against women, which is widespread, BBC South Sudan expert James Copnall says.

The overwhelming majority of victims are South Sudanese, and so far there seems to be little progress made in bringing the perpetrators of those crimes to justice.

In the civil war, tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced.

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Source: BBC

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The victims were ambushed by unknown attackers when travelling between Juba and the town of Pibor to the northwest.

Oxfam said the attack “demonstrates how dangerous it is here” and was leading agencies to re-evaluate “what is mission-critical and what is not”.

Aid deliveries would continue but could be delayed, it said.

The latest fatal attack on humanitarian workers came a month after famine was declared in parts of South Sudan.

The UN says the famine – the first to be announced anywhere in the world in six years – is man-made, resulting from a political conflict that escalated into war in 2013.

Oxfam humanitarian campaigns manager Dorothy Sang, who is in South Sudan, told the BBC it was “one of the most difficult countries to operate in right now”.

She said attacks on aid workers “unfortunately aren’t uncommon” – 12 have been killed this year alone and there have been a number of other, non-fatal attacks on aid convoys and warehouses.

She said Oxfam would continue delivering aid but was reassessing how this could be done with least risk.

Transporting aid by road was now “extremely dangerous” and agencies were considering whether they could step up transportation by air, and whether risks on the road could be reduced by aid organisations travelling in convoy.

This re-evaluation of risks could mean that aid deliveries were delayed, Ms Sang said.

“The brutal killing… has sent shockwaves through us all,” said Care International country director Fred McCray. “It is unacceptable that those trying to alleviate the suffering… are attacked for what they do.”

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) programme director for South Sudan Monica Blagescu said: “This is the crude reality of the situation in South Sudan, where humanitarian workers put their lives at risk while providing life-saving assistance to people affected by conflict and drought.

“Those in a position of power must step up to their responsibilities and stop such heinous incidents from happening again.”

In many cases of assaults on aid agencies, it is not known who the attackers are. There are many armed groups in South Sudan, engaged in a battle for power and resources.

South Sudanese rebels have blamed government forces for the killings on Saturday.

A spokesman for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – In Opposition, which is led by former Vice-President Riek Machar, condemned the attack and called for an investigation.

“The area where this barbaric incident took place is under the control of [the] Juba regime and its militias,” the spokesman, Paul Gabriel Lam, was reported by the Paris-based Sudan Tribune as saying.

The government has said it is too early to say who was behind the attack and it would be “counterproductive” to assign blame “at this stage”.

‘No guns’

Grieving families went to the morgue in Juba on Monday to collect the bodies of their relatives.

“This is very painful for all of us,” Levis Kori, whose 30-year-old brother John Riti was killed in the attack, told AP new agency.

“They were humanitarians there to do good. They’re not soldiers, they have no guns.”

The attack comes at a critical time for aid agencies in South Sudan, which are trying to pre-position stocks in key areas before the expected arrival of the rains in the coming weeks.

The rainy season makes access much harder for aid agencies and brings greater risk that malnourished people, already vulnerable to illness, will catch water-borne diseases.

The DEC has warned that “a toxic mix of drought and violent conflict” means South Sudan is now the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

It says 6,000 people a day – equating to four people a minute – were forced to flee to neighbouring Uganda last month.

There are now more refugees fleeing to Uganda than across the Mediterranean, the DEC says.

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Source: BBC

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Today was declared a national holiday in the country so that a national day of prayer could be held.

The prayers were held at a gathering in the capital, Juba, at the mausoleum for John Garang, the man considered the father of South Sudan:

President Kiir also called for redemption of the people of South Sudan from the many troubles bestowed on the country:

I pray that you may not bring condemnation and punishment, but forgiveness and salvation to the people of South Sudan.

Most merciful God, through my shortcomings, I have sinned against you in thoughts, in words, and deeds by what I have done and what I have failed to do.”

South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, but two years after independence the world’s newest country descended into civil war.

Tens of thousands of South Sudanese have fled their homes and ethnic violence continues despite a regional peace initiative.

Last month, famine was declared in some parts of the country.

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Source: BBC

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Ban Ki-moon dismissed Lt Gen Johnson Ondieki after a report said it had failed to protect civilians in July.

Kenya condemned the decision as unfair, and said it would withdraw its troops from the UN mission in South Sudan.

The report said peacekeepers did not act when soldiers attacked an aid compound in the capital, Juba.

In the fighting between the army and former rebels, a local journalist was killed and aid workers were raped.

The clashes derailed efforts to form a unity government and end the civil war.

‘Structural dys-functionality’

In its statement, Kenya said Mr Ban’s decision to sack Gen Ondieki failed to address the root causes of the problem highlighted in the report.

“What is clear is that Unmiss [UN Mission in South Sudan] suffers from structural dys-functionality, which has severely hindered its capacity to discharge its mandate,” the statement says.

Kenya suggests the UN should have addressed the problems which are dogging its peacekeeping mission rather than “unfairly” blame them on one individual.

It is not clear how many of the UN’s 13,000 troops in South Sudan come from Kenya.

Accused of rape

In connection with the incidents which led to the sacking of Gen Ondieki, several people were arrested on Wednesday in Juba, officials said.

Among those arrested, eight are accused of rape, and eight others of looting.

The government of South Sudan had commissioned its own report on the July incidents but it did not make it public.

The UN has not yet commented on Kenya’s response to the secretary-general’s decision.

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Source: BBC

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South Sudan is the world’s youngest country, and it has witnessed immense change since gaining independence in 2011. The promise of peace has given way to civil war, and tribal rifts continue to run deep, permeating political affairs. Over two million people have been displaced according to the UN, and tens of thousands killed.

Meat the family

It would be hard to find a more dedicated group of herdsmen than the tribe who live on the banks of the Nile, north of the capital Juba. Their entire lifestyle is geared around caring for their prized livestock, the Ankole-Watusi, a horned breed known as “the cattle of kings.”

These cows grow up to eight feet tall, and are worth as much as $500 each. It’s no wonder the Mundari view these animals as their most valuable assets (or that they guard them with with machine guns).

Photographer Tariq Zaidi spent a fortnight earlier this year documenting their lives and the devotion they show towards these animals. Zaidi has captured tribes and indigenous people from over 30 African nations, though he was nonetheless taken aback by the relationship between man and beast.

“It’s hard to overstate the importance of cattle to the Mundari people,” says Zaidi, “these animals are everything to them.”

The photographer describes how “almost every man I met wanted me to take a picture of them with their favorite cow.” Their wives and children, on the other hand, were given short shrift.

Perhaps this is in part due to the function and symbolism of the Ankole-Watusi. Each bovine is so highly prized that it is rarely killed for its meat. Instead, it is a walking larder, a pharmacy, a dowry, even a friend. It is clear that cow is a resource maintaining not just a people, but a way of life.

The Mundari, tall and muscular, may “look like bodybuilders,” says Zaidi, “but their diet is pretty much milk and yogurt. That’s it.” Other bodily fluids have more unlikely uses. Mundari men will squat under streams of cow urine, both an antiseptic, Zaidi suggests, and as an aesthetic choice — the ammonia in the urine color the Mundari’s hair orange.

Meanwhile dung is piled high into heaps for burning, the fine peach-colored ash used as another form of antiseptic and sunscreen by the herdsmen, shielding them from the 115-degree heat.

The cows, adds Zaidi, are among the world’s most pampered. He says he witnessed Mundari massaging their animals twice a day. The ash from dung fires, as fine as talcum powder, is rubbed into the cattle’s skin and used as bedding, while ornamental tassels swat flies from the eyes of the herd’s most prestigious beasts.

Outflanking war

The Mundari sleep among their cattle, “literally two feet away from their favorites” says Zaidi, and guard them at the point of a gun. It’s not unreasonable for the tribe to go to these lengths.

“Rustlers are a huge issue for them,” the photographer explains. “Their cattle are a form of currency and status symbol, and form a key part of a family’s pension or dowry. Since the end of the civil war, thousands of men have returned to South Sudan looking for wives, which has pushed up the ‘bride price’, making these animals even more precious and increasing lethal cattle raids.”

Such raids have been deadly for the Mundari, but the effects of war are manifold. Landmines make finding fresh pasture a dangerous lottery. When he visited, Zaidi says the tribe were using a small island in the Nile as a safe haven. The conflict, he adds, has the paradoxical effect of preserving their way of life.

“The ongoing war in South Sudan has cut off the Mundari tribe from the rest of the world,” he says. “They don’t venture into the town, they stay in the bush, and it’s why their unique way of life endures.”

Zaidi says the Mundari have no taste for war and “their guns are not to kill anyone but to protect their herd.” All the Mundari want to do is take care of their livestock, he argues, “and they will protect them at all costs.”

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The children were recruited by the Cobra Faction and the SPLA in Opposition, two armed groups which have been fighting the government.

They were freed in the eastern region of Pibor and “disarmed and provided with civilian clothes,” UNICEF said in a statement.

About 16,000 children are still in “armed groups”, it added.

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Source: BBC

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Commissioned by actor George Clooney, the document accuses President Salva Kiir, opposition leader Riek Machar, and top generals of profiteering.

It follows the trail of money with links to the families of both Mr Kiir and Mr Machar.

Those named have not yet responded to the allegations.

The BBC is seeking comment from them.

The report’s authors spent two years collecting evidence and testimony on behalf of a new investigative unit – called

The Sentry – which was co-founded by the US actor.

‘Rival factions of kleptocratic network’

Entitled War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay, the report has found that “top officials ultimately responsible for mass atrocities in South Sudan have at the same time managed to accumulate fortunes, despite modest government salaries”.

“Some have been involved in questionable business deals while others have apparently received large payments from corporations doing business in South Sudan.”

A man walks past a destroyed tanks in Juba. Photo: July 2016Image copyrightAP

The civil war that erupted in 2013 has devastated the country

A fall-out between President Kiir and former Vice-President Machar – the most powerful members of their respective

Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups – led to the civil war which erupted in December 2013.

Terrible atrocities have been carried out by both sides – often along ethnic lines.

Mass rape has been used as a weapon of war and United Nations reports have detailed human rights abuses.

Some 2.5 million people have been forced from their homes, and millions more need food aid.

“It seems that a very small number of people control a large swathe of South Sudan’s economy – and many of these people are also the people that are in power”

When a peace deal between the two men fell apart amid heavy fighting of the streets of the capital Juba in July, any chance of a quick resolution to the crisis crumbled.

“This war is about rival factions of a kleptocratic network trying to gain control of the state,” said JR Mailey, the author of the report by The Sentry, which is a collaboration between The Enough Project, Not On Our Watch, and C4ADS.

It says President Kiir’s wife and at least seven of his children were linked to a whole range of businesses, and has evidence that Mr Kiir’s 12-year-old son had a 25% share in a holding company.

It says a company linked to his brother-in-law, Gen Gregory Vasili Dimitry, supplied fuel to the military while he was a senior officer.

It details business connections between Gen Vasili and the Kiirs, and says that the two families hold interests in almost two dozen companies.

“I was mostly struck by the breadth of sectors in which these top officials are involved,” said JR Mailey, the author of the report.

“We’re talking everything from airlines, to banks, oil companies, mining companies, casinos.

“It seems that a very small number of people control a large swathe of South Sudan’s economy – and many of these people are also the people that are in power,” he said.

Mr Machar is accused of dealing with a Ukrainian arms company through a Russian intermediary with multiple aliases.

“What we found on Vice-President Machar, [he] had been engaged in negotiations to sell the country’s oil production for defence products – for weapons in order to fuel his rebellion,” said Mr Mailey.

“We also found evidence that a nephew of his was involved in a violent and hostile takeover of a security company operating in South Sudan.”

New approach

Among the many details outlined in the report are pictures of luxury villas, said to be owned by politicians and generals in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Australia.

It says both President Kiir and Mr Machar have luxurious homes in the same upmarket neighbourhood of Nairobi.

Mr Clooney and John Prendergast, a human rights activist, have taken a practical interest in Sudan and South Sudan over a number of years.

Their publicity campaign helped pressure the US government to push Sudan towards the peace deal which ended decades of war, led to a referendum on self-determination, and eventually independence in 2011.

Thousands of civilians have been sheltering in a UN base in Juba.

Top generals are also implicated in business deals, with large amounts of money going through their bank accounts.

Army chief of staff Gen Paul Malong Awan is accused of having close business connections to President Kiir and his family and having luxury villas.

The report says Deputy General Malek Reuben Riak, and a general sanctioned by the US, Gabriel Jok Riak, had millions of dollars passing through their foreign bank accounts, despite salaries of less than $50,000 (£37,730).

The investigative unit says it tried to get comment from each of those people named in its report – War Crimes Shouldn’t Pay: Stopping the Looting and Destruction of South Sudan.

“The Sentry endeavoured to contact every individual and entity… in most cases they did not respond,” the report said.

It recommends using a “new approach to countering mass atrocities”.

“That involves using the tools of financial pressure that were developed to counter nuclear proliferation and organised crime and terrorism,” said Mr Mailey.

“We want those tools to be deployed aggressively in South Sudan. In the past these sanctions have only been applied in a piecemeal fashion and we think sanctions need to be accompanied by robust anti-money laundering measures,” he said.

An expanded international peacekeeping force for South Sudan is due to help bring a peace deal back on track, but there’s little confidence the crisis – affecting so many millions of people – will be resolved any time soon.

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Source: BBC

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