Children 'forced to watch rape' in South Sudan
Children in South Sudan have been forced to watch their mothers being raped and killed, the UN says.
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.
Conflict between government factions has continued in South Sudan despite a peace deal signed in 2015.
Of the 40 senior officials identified as potentially responsible
for atrocities, five are colonels and three are state governors.
They have not been named by the report, but their identities could be made public at trial at a later date.
The
UN says the testimony gathered from survivors is "devastating",
including some people being forced to rape family members "in cases
reminiscent of Bosnia".
One
woman said her 12-year-old son was forced to have sex with his
grandmother, in order to stay alive. The same woman also saw her husband
being castrated.
Another man saw his companion, a man, gang raped and left for dead in the bushes.
"Sexual
violence against men in South Sudan is far more extensive than
documented", says the head of the Commission on Human Rights in South
Sudan, Yasmin Sook.
"What we see so far is likely just the tip of the iceberg."
Another
survivor, a pregnant woman in Lainya County, says she saw suspected
opposition supporters being detained, tortured and then decapitated by
SPLA fighters.
She was kept with the victims' decomposing bodies. One of them was her husband's.
"There is a clear pattern of ethnic persecution," says Commissioner on Human Rights in South Sudan Andrew Clapham.
He adds it is "for the most part by government forces, who should be pursued for crimes against humanity".
The
plan is to take the evidence of crimes against humanity to a new hybrid
court which is due to be set up by the South Sudanese authorities in
partnership with the African Union.
But the problem is South
Sudan's government is unlikely to ever set up the court because its own
military allies are thought to be some of the main culprits, reports the
BBC's Will Ross.
South Sudan's government spokesman says it needs
to "investigate the reality" of the UN's report because "most of those
types of reports are cut and paste".
But Ateng Wek Ateng also told the BBC: "We take this report seriously.
"We
would want the UNHCR to furnish us with information leading to the
arrest of those 40 officials and we will make sure those 40 are brought
to book."
BBC
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