Remarks by Ivan Šimonović, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights at the Human Rights Council on the Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on South Sudan pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 29/13, Geneva, 22 March 2016

Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Alarmed by the deteriorating human rights situation in South Sudan, this Council, through its resolution 29/13 of July 2015, requested the High Commissioner to urgently undertake a comprehensive assessment of allegations of violations and abuses of human rights.

Since the start of the conflict in South Sudan, various reports by the United Nations and the African Union have found that the parties to the conflict and their allied forces have killed civilians, raped women and girls, and pillaged and destroyed civilian property such as houses, humanitarian infrastructure, schools, and medical facilities including hospitals. The assessment mission confirmed that these violations continue. These include killings and other attacks against civilians, rape and other sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, deprivation of liberty, abduction and violations of child rights, including the recruitment of children and use in hostilities. Given the breadth and depth of the allegations, their gravity, consistency, recurrence and similarities in their modus operandi, the assessment mission’s report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that these violations may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.

In spite of the signing of the new Peace Agreement in August 2015, hostilities between the parties have continued, particularly in Unity and Upper Nile states with consequent human rights violations and abuses. A new troubling development has been the spread of violence and insecurity to the Equatoria region where an increasing number of armed defence groups have emerged in response to the Government’s highly militarised approach to addressing insecurity. Civilians in the region which had hitherto remained little affected by the conflict are now caught in the middle of sporadic fighting between the SPLA and these local defence groups.

The country has also been plunged into a deep humanitarian crisis as a result of the current situation. As we speak, about 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes and some 600,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. Close to 200,000 of the internally displaced are living in UNMISS compounds. As a result, most parts of the country face severe food insecurity and possible famine.

Killings and attacks on civilians

From previous reports it is visible that both sides have been involved in violations when taking over areas previously under control of the other side. In the spring of 2015, the Government conducted a counter-insurgency offensive in Unity State which resulted in the spread of terror among the civilian population including widespread killings, sexual and gender-based violence and indiscriminate destruction of villages and towns and civilian property. The report concludes that most civilian casualties during the campaign were the result of deliberately targeted attacks rather than combat operation.

The assessment team heard from witness reports of civilians suspected of supporting the opposition, including children and the disabled, being burned alive in their homes, suffocated in containers, shot, hanged from trees or cut to pieces. Their livestock were looted and their means of livelihood destroyed. A woman described how Government forces and allied militia attacked her village, shot and killed her husband in her presence, and later locked her grandfather in a storage room and burned him alive.

In early October 2015, a group of about 60 people, including young boys, were arrested and killed later that month in Leer, Unity state. The victims had their hands tied and were forced into a container which had no windows or ventilation. Witnesses heard them crying, screaming and banging on the walls of the container. Most of them suffocated and died within a day or two after their incarceration.

Rapes and other acts of violence against women

The team found that in its military offensive in Unity, the SPLA and allied militia raped and abducted women and girls essentially as a form of payment, and used rape as an intentional strategy to terrorize civilians and punish them. One woman described how she was tied to a tree and forced to watch her 15 year-old daughter being raped by ten soldiers. Another was stripped naked and raped by soldiers in front of her children. From April to September last year, the United Nations recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in Unity State alone.

Violence against children and recruitment of child soldiers

Children have been maimed, deliberately killed by the parties to the conflict, raped and recruited for hostilities, abducted, forcefully displaced, and separated from their families. The assessment team found that both Government and opposition have forcibly conscripted children, some as young as nine, to participate in the armed conflict in breach of international human rights law, international criminal law and customary international humanitarian law. According to UNICEF, violations of child rights witnessed a sharp increase in 2015, with over 702 children reportedly affected by incidents of sexual violence since the start of the conflict.

Destruction and looting of civilian property

Information gathered by the team on the SPLA offensive in Unity in the spring of 2015 strongly suggests that Government forces and allied militia committed war crimes by systematically burning homes and entire villages, including clothes, shelters, and in some instances food stocks and seeds stored in huts. Witness testimonies corroborated by satellite images showed the systematic destruction of towns and villages that suggested a deliberate strategy to deprive civilians living in the area of any form of livelihood or material support.

Forced displacement

The impact of the conflict on civilians is reflected in the staggering number of displaced persons across the country. The majority of the displaced in Unity State ended up in the UNMISS protection of civilians site in Bentiu, where the number of IDPs increased from 53,000 at the start of the Government offensive in April 2015 to 122,000 as of late 2015.

Violations of freedom of opinion and expression and of assembly

In addition to conflict-related violence, the Government has increasingly suppressed freedoms of expression and other democratic rights. Since the conflict started, the Government has increased its attacks on freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. Civil society activists, human rights defenders, humanitarian actors, journalists and print media have been subjected to threats, intimidation, harassment, detention and in some instances death. In 2015, at least seven journalists were killed and many activists arrested. In Unity State alone, at least 13 humanitarian workers were killed in the period from April to October 2015.

Technical assistance and capacity building

The report notes that for more than a decade, the United Nations has been supporting Government institutions through training with very limited success. Given the findings that the state apparatus is largely responsible for many of the violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, the report recommends that the provision of technical assistance should be contingent on concrete progress on the ground, including progress in the establishment of the Transitional Government of National Unity and to ending violence against civilians.

Conclusion

The protracted conflict in South Sudan has resulted in widespread atrocities and suffering, including the mass destruction of towns and villages, and the killing of thousands of civilians, with thousands more on the brink of starvation. Yet, despite repeated commitments by the parties to the conflict to end the violence and punish the perpetrators, there has been no evidence of any genuine efforts by the Government or the opposition to investigate, prosecute and punish violations and abuses, some of which may amount to international crimes.

The Agreement on the resolution of the conflict offers renewed hope for justice and a chance to break the long cycle of impunity which has helped fuel the conflict. Chapter V of the agreement makes provision for the establishment of a hybrid court to try genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and a truth, healing and reconciliation commission as well as a compensation and reparation commission. The establishment of these institutions will undoubtedly face tremendous challenges, and will require huge support of international community. Furthermore, given South Sudan’s weakened state institutions and justice system and the fact that the hybrid court will only investigate and try a limited number of senior military and political leaders, a complementary mechanism will need to be developed to locally prosecute and try many more perpetrators of conflict-related crimes.

Distinguished delegates,

Let me conclude: The disregard for human life and total impunity for gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law documented in this report calls for urgent action by the Human Rights Council. I particularly draw your attention to the recommendation to consider the establishment of a dedicated mechanism to report on the progress towards accountability and the human rights situation.

Thank you very much for your attention.