Soldiers from South Sudan’s national army SPLA prevented dozens of displaced people from reaching the UN’s ‘Protection of Civilians’ site in Malakal town of Upper Nile state over the weekend, multiple sources told Radio Tamazuj.
According to the sources, UN peacekeepers were escorting around 270 displaced Shilluk people, mostly men, from Wau Shilluk on the Nile’s west bank to the Malakal base when they were stopped by SPLA soldiers.
The soldiers demanded that the men be handed over to them for detention but allowed the women and children to proceed to the base. The UNMISS peacekeepers did not hand the men over but escorted them back to the west bank, the sources said.
The current status of the men is not known. Malakal is controlled by government troops while the west bank is held by rebels.
Separately, the UN’s state coordinator in Upper Nile reportedly issued a directive that peacekeepers will no longer admit newly arrived civilians to the Malakal base because the compound is full, according to a source.
UNMISS spokesperson Ariane Quentier did not respond to questions emailed yesterday from Radio Tamazuj regarding this matter and the SPLA incident. Update: 9:41 AM, 1/10/2015 The report of the directive is not true, according to Quentier. The UNMISS spokesperson further confirmed the incident with the SPLA, putting the number of men turned back at around 130.
As of 24 September, there were 45,462 people sheltering in the UN base in Malakal, according to UNMISS figures. Thousands of civilians have arrived at the base recently following a month-long blockade of food deliveries to the Nile’s west bank by the SPLA.
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South Sudan govt shuts down Nile food barges as civilian hunger increases (21 Jul.)