Forces of Major General Johnson Olony forcibly recruited an estimated 500-1000 young men and boys this month in Kodok and Wau Shilluk of Upper Nile State, according to a report by ceasefire monitors of the regional bloc IGAD.
Olony who leads an ethnic Shilluk militia was loyal to the government until defecting early last month. His forces are now aligned with SPLA-IO led by Riek Machar. Olony’s forces led attacks against government-controlled Melut town in May, threatening to take nearby oilfields.
In a report, the IGAD Monitoring and Verification Team said that it received reports in June that children under the age of 18 were continuing to be recruited by Olony’s forces in the areas of Kodok and Wau Shilluk.
“The IGAD MVT conducted wide-ranging investigations into these reports and concluded that there was sufficient evidence to confirm that Olony’s forces had indeed carried out forcible recruitment of an estimated 500-1000 youth, many of whom were children aged between 13 and 17 years,” the ceasefire monitors stated.
They added, “This took place between 7-9 June 2015, during house-to-house searches in the villages of Kodok and Wau Shilluk. The youth were then taken to training camps.”
IGAD’s Joint Technical Committee “concluded that SPLM/A (IO) and their affiliated Shilluk militia, led by Major General Johnson Olony, are in breach of the COHA [Cessation of Hostilities Agreement] and international laws and conventions on the issue of child soldiers, as well as national law.”
According to South Sudanese domestic law and customary international law, ‘child soldiers’ in this context are defined as persons under the age of 18.
This conclusion comes after earlier evidence found by the IGAD monitors that Olony’s forces recruited child soldiers in Wau Shilluk in February 2015, while his forces were still affiliated to the government.