Peter Makuoth Malual, the appointed Information Minister in Leer of South Sudan’s Unity state, says an investigation committee has started questioning commanders in the town over their alleged role in atrocities detailed in a recent United Nations human rights report.
The report, published last week by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), detailed mass rape and murder of civilians allegedly carried out by government forces in 2015 in Leer and other counties of southern Unity.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj, Makuoth, who is the appointed information minister for the proposed Southern Liech state which includes Leer, Mayendit, and Panyijar counties, said the atrocities described in the UN report are “appalling and unfortunate.”
He further said the report was shocking and may affect social peace in Leer.
Makuoth claimed that his government has started investigations in order to take the perpetrators to court, beginning with those commanders in Leer town whose names appeared in the report. He explained that outcomes of the investigation will be released after two months.
However, no commanders were named in the UN report. Instead, the report mentions that the SPLA and county commissioners are bound by international humanitarian law.
The county commissioner of Leer county during the fighting was Wal Yach Gatkuoth, though the Mayendit commissioner Kor Gatmai Garang was in command in Leer county briefly in October.
‘Scorched earth policy’
In its report, the UN Human Rights Office says the soldiers used a “scorched earth policy” against the civilian population in the area, forcing people toward starvation. It called the scale and type of sexual violence one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world.
Between April to September 2015, the UN recorded 1,300 reported rapes in Unity State, though cautioned that this figure is likely a snapshot of the real total.
The report further said sexual assaults are carried out with extreme brutality. Girls and women of all ages are the victims of multiple gang rapes. Some women were murdered after being raped, while others are taken and held in sexual slavery as “wives” for soldiers in barracks, the report said.