JUBA DECEMBER 15, 2017(CISA)-Amnesty International, an international human rights agency has called for urgent global interventions to end the horrific human rights violations in South Sudan.
“Coordinated and sustained international action is needed now more than ever to end the suffering in South Sudan, especially as the rainy season ends and the dry season begins, heralding an escalation in fighting,” Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes said today in a statement.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed; thousands more subjected to sexual violence, and close to four million displaced since the conflict began on 15 December 2013.
She called on the regional states and the international community to work together to find a lasting solution to this crisis and put an end to the litany of human rights violations.
“The last four years of fighting have had a devastating impact on civilians. Thousands of men, women and children have been subjected to unimaginable acts of violence, including sexual assault, by government and opposition forces, some of which could amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes. This needs to come to an end,” she said.
In the Equatoria region, noted Ms Jackson, Amnesty International found that government and opposition forces cut food supplies to certain areas, systematically looted food from markets and homes, and targeted civilians carrying even the smallest amount of food across frontlines.
“Food has been used as a weapon of war, and as a result today approximately 4.8 million people are considered to be food insecure. This state of affairs will continue, unless speedy action is taken to end the humanitarian crisis,” she said.
She noted that the efforts to end the conflict must include “imposition of an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict and concrete measures to deliver justice to victims of grave human rights violations, chiefly through the setting up of the much-delayed Hybrid Court for South Sudan.”
