South Sudan Conflict: UN Warns of «Ethnic Cleansing»

Local Editor

Ethnic cleansing is taking place in war-torn South Sudan, the UN Commission on Human Rights [UNCHR] warned.

It said it had observed starvation, the burning of villages and violence being used as weapons of war across the country.

The three-member commission, which was established earlier this year, has just completed a 10-day visit to South Sudan, which had been blighted by conflict for more than three years.

President Salva Kiir denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place.

In a statement released on Thursday, the UNCHR said "the stage is being set for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda" in 1994 - a reference to the killing of 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, in the space of three months.

UNCHR head Yasmin Sooka said that everywhere the team went in South Sudan, it "heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back".

South Sudan's civil war had caused more than 2.2 million people to flee their homes.

It began in 2013, two years after South Sudan became independent, when President Salva Kiir sacked his cabinet and accused Vice-President Riek Machar of instigating a failed coup.

Government and rebels agreed to attend peace talks in 2014, and a deal was signed a year later.

Machar eventually returned from exile to be reinstated as first vice-president of a new unity government under Kiir in April 2016.

However, he was again sacked months later after renewed conflict.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team