South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar has claimed that the majority of the victims of the Bentiu mosque massacre were actually “Sudanese rebels” who died fighting, not unarmed civilians who were shot in targeted racial killings. Machar’s assertion contradicts the findings of two major human rights reports.
In an interview published by Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper on Saturday, the former vice president was asked about the massacres of civilians in Bentiu, which took place in April 2014.
He responded, “This was on April 15, 2014. The government was being supported by four groups of Sudanese rebels, one of them being JEM (Justice and Equality Movement). When we dislodged them from Bentiu, a lot of them died but also a lot of them ran to the mosque. There was a battle in the mosque and a good number of people died.”
He continued: “However, we also investigated through our own machinery and it is not true that all of those who died in the mosque were civilians. The majority of them were armed soldiers, even though some civilians died.”
However, according to the Human Rights Division of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the victims of the massacre were civilians and there is no evidence that any battle took place inside the mosque. UNMISS stated in a human rights report published on 8 May 2014, “Opposition forces attacked and killed several hundred civilians at the mosque on 15 April.”
In another more in-depth report published after further investigations on 9 January 2015, UNMISS stated, “There are reasonable grounds to believe that hundreds of civilians were targeted and killed by SPLA/IO forces… in Bentiu. At least 19 civilians were killed at the Bentiu Civil Hospital, and approximately 287 civilians were killed at the mosque.”
The May UN report explained that many “foreign traders” had been sleeping in the mosque for months prior to the massacre, as it was considered safer than the market place. “The mosque is located in the Kalibalik area of Bentiu and is home to many foreign nationals.” Many foreign traders sought to leave Bentiu before the opposition attack but government troops turned them back as they fled the city. As a result, the traders were obliged to return to the Kalibalik area.
When SPLA-IO troops overran the government forces, the traders were still at the mosque. The in-depth UN investigation report says that a group of opposition forces arrived there around mid-day. “After extorting money and other belongings from civilians, some of the opposition forces began shooting into the crowd inside the mosque. Multiple shooters were identified by witnesses, including one with a machine gun and one with an AK-47; both shot at civilians from the steps of the mosque. Other opposition forces reportedly also shot through the windows.”
“The exact sequence of events and what triggered the shooting remains unclear. It appears that one fighter in a military uniform with a machine gun, came through a door and opened fire… one victim [i.e., a survivor] reported that he managed to reload his machine gun during the shooting… Several fighters were seen shooting through the windows,” the UN reported.
The UN report from May also says that the shooters paused during the massacre to do a racial cull, after realizing some Ethiopian and Eritrean traders were among the crowd in the mosque. After escorting them out of the mosque to safety, the shooters continued to kill more Sudanese.
However, not everyone inside the mosque was killed and many of the wounded were later transported to the hospital on orders of SPLA-IO officers who arrived at the scene after the massacre, according to the UN reports. These survivors would later provide eyewitness accounts of what happened.
Nighttime mass burials
Machar’s version of the events of 15 April does not adequately explain why the SPLA-IO forces made hurried efforts to bury the bodies at a remote area far from the city, on the first night after the killings. If the victims had been “armed soldiers,” then there would have been nothing to hide and the burial work could have been carried out during the daytime and at a more convenient burial site not so far from the city.
Instead, the SPLA-IO diverted critical military resources from the frontline including soldiers, vehicles and fuel in order to ensure that the mosque victims were buried far from the city, according to the UN report.
“Once most of the survivors had left the mosque, the [SPLA-IO] officers identified about 30 able-bodied persons to load the dead bodies into the dump truck. …Several hours were needed to complete the task. In total, according to credible witnesses, over 250 bodies were loaded into the truck,” the report says.
At least 37 bodies were left behind because the burial crews were in such a hurry, according to the UN report.
Nine survivors were selected to travel with the SPLA-IO fighters in order to unload the bodies at the destination. “They were forced to sit on top of the bodies at the back of the truck. The truck, escorted by two military pick-ups, reportedly left the mosque at around 02.00 on 16 April 2014. It took more than two hours to reach Khaljak, 30 kilometres from Bentiu. Approximately five minutes after passing Khaljak, the convoy turned to the left, took an adjacent track and drove on for a few kilometres before stopping.
“According to one source, the nine survivors were then stripped of their identification papers and instructed by a SPLA/IO officer to unload and dump the bodies into a water drainage trench. At dawn, after unloading the bodies, the convoy drove towards Torabeit where other SPLA/IO fighters were picked up. The convoy returned to Bentiu in the course of the afternoon. Upon reaching Rubkona, the nine survivors were dropped off at the Pakur checkpoint and ordered to go to the UNMISS camp,” reads the human rights report.
While the majority of bodies were removed from the mosque, many other people killed elsewhere in Bentiu town were left unburied for days. Between 20 and 24 April 2014, UN Human Rights officers working in Bentiu documented the presence of 81 dead bodies, 79 in civilian clothes and two in military fatigues. The bodies were found in 21 separate locations, spread widely throughout the Kalibalek area of Bentiu.
“In at least four of the locations where bodies in civilian clothing were found, the bodies had their hands tied behind their back or had evident bullet holes to the head,” says the January UNMISS human rights report.
File photo: A UN peacekeeper stands guard near the massacre site in Bentiu during investigations, 20 April 2014 (Reuters)
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