South Sudanese government troops killed ten civilians including women and children in a “house to house” massacre at a village near the capital Juba on Monday evening.
The rampage took place at Kalipapa village in Kwerijik Bungu Payam located about 38 miles west of the capital Juba. After a failed military operation against rebels who had abducted travellers along the Yei-Juba road earlier, soldiers turned their guns on villagers.
Jubek State’s top law enforcement official confirmed the incident, as did a religious cleric hailing from the area. Frazer Yugu, Assistant Bishop of the Episcopal Church, said today that the incident occurred after a search by government forces for passengers who were earlier abducted along the Juba-Yei road.
“According to the villagers here, they said there were people who came around 7:00 pm, they came with guns, they were wearing government uniforms, some of them were wearing black uniforms of police operations, so they started shooting at civilians in the neighbourhood,” said the Episcopal bishop today in an interview with Radio Tamazuj after visiting the area.
“According to what is being said by the citizens of this village, they were police and SPLA forces because they were wearing uniforms, they were mixed, the police were in black uniforms, so this is what they said, they came with six vehicles,” he added.
“So they killed seven men and three women, we buried the bodies yesterday evening in Kwerijik Bungu, and four people were wounded, there were two men and two women,” he said. He pointed out that the government troops also took two men together with them after the incident.
A top official confirmed the incident in an interview with Eye Radio but put the death toll higher. Jubek State Minister of Local Government and Law Enforcement Isaac Ribek Benjamin said the killings took place after a Sunday incident in which suspected rebels took six travellers as hostages and commandeered the car.
“So on the following day, the army went there in search for the car,” he said. “And I think that resulted in the cause of the incident in which more than 13 people were shot dead. They were civilians, not soldiers; [They’re] women and children,” Ribek explained.
‘We cannot understand’
In an earlier interview with Radio Miraya, Bishop Yugu noted that the attackers targeted “people in the houses,” explaining, “even some houses are killed completely including the children and the mother and the father. They went from house to house. Then they started shooting.”
Frazer expressed shock and indicated that the soldiers based nearby the village never would have committed such a deed, blaming instead forces that had came from Juba.
“It is something confusing because the army in Bungu have nothing [no problem] with the people in the village there. But the people who came from [Juba]. …We cannot understand. Because the army in Bungu is cooperating with the people there in the village.”
The assistant bishop urged his people to remain calm saying, “In the village there we are under the government control. We don’t have any connection with the rebels. And even those who came and burned the car we don’t know them even. My message to them [my people] is that let them be calm and let them remain under the government controlled unit until they bury their dead ones until they decide whether to come to Juba or to remain in Bungu.”
The massacre comes after President Salva Kiir and his Minister of Information Michael Makuei threatened violence against Equatorians in retaliation for roadside ambushes carried out by armed groups in the Equatoria region. A group of Equatorian diaspora leaders yesterday said that Kiir’s remarks amount to incitement of violence and that he “holds command responsibility and ultimate accountability for all atrocities and crimes against humanity committed by his forces.”
For its part, the SPLA information office did not deny the incident but said that it lacked information about it and would investigate. Santo Doming, the SPLA army’s deputy spokesman, told Radio Tamazuj that the SPLA leadership will investigate what happened.
“I am saying we should confirm that from the leaders of the area so that they tell us what happened exactly, we cannot rely on this report, because some of the reports are not credible,” said Santo.
Rebels release abductees
Separately, Frazer Yugu said that about eight people who were kidnapped by the SPLA-IO rebels along the Juba-Yei have been released, out of about 14 passengers who were abducted by the rebels.
“Those who were held hostage by the rebels have returned to Bungu here this morning, they were eight, they said they were released, so they are here with us in Bungu,” said Yugu.
“We asked them about the rest, they said that one person has run to Yei, and another man went to Juba, so the number is now ten, those who remain in the bush with those people are four in number,” he added.
“But according to them, none of them were killed, even those who remained in the bush are still alive according to what they said, they said that they were arrested by the SPLA-IO.”