UN reported a 35% rise in the number of victims of violence in South Sudan.
According to a recent report, in certain areas of South Sudan, the increase in intercommunal conflict is mostly affecting civilians.
According to the UN, intercommunal fighting caused a 35 percent increase in the number of persons impacted by violence in South Sudan in the final three months of 2023.
The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has recorded 233 violent incidents that have left 862 persons injured. According to a study that was made public on Monday, there were 406 fatalities, 293 injuries, 100 kidnappings, and 63 cases of sexual assault associated to conflicts.
The number of victims recorded from the previous quarter increased by thirty-five percent.
According to the report, 86 percent of all affected citizens were victims of intercommunal violence committed by civil defense organizations or community-based militias.
With 263 killed and 186 injured, the report stated that more than half of those impacted by the violence were involved in retaliatory attacks related to the border dispute between rival factions of the Dinka ethnic group: the Twic Dinka from Warrap state, the main hot spot for conflict, and the Ngok Dinka from the oil-rich region of Abyei.
The head of UNMISS, Nicholas Haysom, stated that “intercommunal conflict continues to cause immense harm to communities across the country.”
Elections in South Sudan are scheduled for later this year,the first after a peace agreement signed in 2018 that put an end to a five-year battle that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his erstwhile nemesis, Riek Machar.
In recent months, violence resulting from ethnic tensions and disputes over resources, including land, has escalated throughout the nation, especially in Abyei.
Over the past year, the UN claims to have carried out at least 10,000 peacekeeping patrols by boat, aircraft, and land.
One of the youngest countries in the world, South Sudan, also experiences drought and flooding, which makes life difficult for its citizens.
South Sudan “continues to face a dire humanitarian crisis” as a result of war, economic instability, climatic change, and a flood of people fleeing the conflict in neighboring Sudan, according to the World Food Programme’s most recent country report.
Leave a Reply