A group of six South Sudan opposition parties has called on the world leaders to admit that the country has sunk into a genocide perpetrated by the current government.

In a joint statement issued Monday, the opposition groups said President Kiir committed crimes in the country since December 2013, when the army targeted Nuer in Juba and later continued to kill people in Greater Upper Nile, Equatoria, and Western Bahr el Ghazal regions.

“The unfolding genocide is a repeat of the December 2013 Juba massacres of ethnic Nuer civilians, which resulted in reprehensible reprisal attacks against Dinka civilians in other parts of the country,” partly reads the statement.

The six groups called upon the region and the international community to investigate, document, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of the recent genocide in Wanduruba, Yei, Lainya, Pajok and Kajokeji in Equatoria, Wau in Bahr el-Ghazal, and the entire Upper Nile.

They also urged the world leaders to "recognise and condemn the genocidal actions of Kiir’s government.

 “We, therefore, call upon the AU, the UN Secretary-General, and the UN Security Council to issue a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the unfolding genocide as a necessary first step to honour the victims and their families and signal a glimmer of hope for the future,” they said.

“President Salva Kiir and his regime must be forced to comply and to take full responsibility for their actions and crimes. Only then can a peaceful political process to end this unprecedented and untold suffering begin”, adds the joint statement.