A United Nations human rights commission warned on Sunday that inflammatory rhetoric by senior South Sudanese military figures and fresh troop mobilisation risk triggering mass atrocities, ethnic violence and further undermining the country’s fragile peace deal.
The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said recent public statements by commanders encouraging violence against civilians, combined with military deployments in Jonglei State, marked a “dangerous escalation” at a time when the peace process is already severely weakened.
The warning follows remarks by a senior military official who instructed troops deployed to front lines in Jonglei to “spare no lives,” including the elderly.
General Johnson Olony, assistant chief of defence forces for mobilisation and disarmament and commander of the Agwelek militia, made the comments while addressing fighters in Duk County.
Olony was speaking to forces preparing to confront fighters from the SPLA-IO and the White Army, which recently overran government garrisons in the Lou Nuer area, including Pajut in Duk County.
“When we arrive there, don’t spare an elderly, don’t spare a chicken, don’t spare a house,” Olony said in remarks widely shared on social media and reported by Radio Tamazuj.
The commission said such language, when used by those exercising effective command and control, could amount to incitement under international law and increase the likelihood of attacks on civilians.
“Language that calls for the killing of civilians, including the elderly, is profoundly dangerous,” said commission chair Yasmin Sooka. “In South Sudan’s past, such rhetoric has preceded mass atrocities.”
Under international law, military and civilian leaders may be held criminally responsible for crimes they order, incite or fail to prevent, the commission said, adding that no senior leader in Juba could claim ignorance of the public calls to violence.
Commissioner Barney Afako warned that the mobilisation of forces alongside “ethnicised messaging” risked setting off a cycle of retaliatory violence.
“Unless there is immediate intervention at the highest level to rein in forces and de-escalate, South Sudan risks sliding rapidly into another phase of widespread violence,” he said, calling for urgent regional engagement.
The commission said the escalation reflected a broader political breakdown driven by repeated violations of the 2018 peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war in which nearly 400,000 people were killed.
It called on all parties to immediately halt inflammatory rhetoric and troop mobilisation, stressing that President Salva Kiir, as commander-in-chief, bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring discipline among forces operating in his name.
“Failure to act decisively to halt incitement and restore command discipline may engage responsibility at the highest levels of leadership,” the commission warned.
“This crisis is not inevitable,” Sooka said. “But the window to act is closing fast.”