A top rebel commander in South Sudan has admitted that his forces killed scores of unarmed Darfurian men in Bentiu last April, justifying the massacre on the basis that they were considered loyal to an enemy armed group. 

The SPLA-IO rebel group briefly overran Bentiu last April and killed more than 300 civilians, mostly Darfurian traders, at several massacre sites including approximately 287 killed at a mosque, according a recent UN human rights report. 

Maj-Gen. James Koang, who commanded the defected 4th Division at the time of the capture of Bentiu, said during an interview that the unarmed people whom they killed were not unarmed civilians but unarmed Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighters who had thrown down their guns and uniforms.

"Some of them they are even removing the uniform and hiding themselves - those people were killed, yes," said Koang. 

In a later follow-up interview, the general was asked how many of these "JEM soldiers" who removed their uniforms were captured and killed.  

"We captured about 80 something... and we were not the ones removing their uniforms, they were the ones removing their uniforms and running into the hiding in the area of Kalibalek, you see. And this is where the UN said the civilians have been killed, while there was no civilians in unif- in, uh, Darfurian civilians." 

The general argued that there could not possibly have been civilian traders in what he considered then to be a war zone, and all Darfurians were considered JEM combatants.

"Then, you know, there were no difference comes for Darfurians in Unity State. They cannot trade in the area that there is war. Somebody cannot come from Europe to come trade in the area where there is fighting."

Asked, "They also did not have weapons, right, when you captured them?" he responded, "They throw the weapons and we collected the weapons."

Later, however, when asked about whether it was a war crime to kill people who have surrendered, he contradicted his earlier statements, saying that the Darfurians were killed in action. 

Meanwhile, witnesses have said that the SPLA-IO took over 250 dead bodies from the Kalibalek Bentiu mosque in a dump truck. They traveled by night under armed escort for more than two hours, dumping the bodies after passing Khaljak in a water drainage trench, after a left turn and several kilometers down an adjacent track. 

The convoy head back toward Bentiu at dawn on 16 April after unloading the bodies. SPLA-IO has yet to explain why it transported these bodies 30 kilometers from Bentiu, disposing of them by night. 

Audio: Listen below for a selection of quotations from General James Koang