On Friday, the UN disclosed that fighting broke out in South Sudan between August and December of last year, resulting in the deaths of almost 600 civilians.

The international organization further charged militias with indiscriminate attacks and sexual slavery.

A flood of violence between armed groups forced tens of thousands of people in the far north’s Upper Nile state to abandon their homes and take sanctuary in swamps beside a river.

According to the UN Mission in South Sudan and the UN Human Rights Office, investigators had documented “indiscriminate attacks, abductions, sexual violence, including rape, gang rape and sexual slavery, and the recruitment and use of children in hostilities, committed by the parties to the conflict.”

 

UNMISS and the UN Human Rights Office documented at least 884 civilian casualties of which 594 had been killed and 290 injured. In addition, 258 were abducted and 75 women and girls subjected to sexual violence,” the joint report summing up the findings says.

It also disclosed that over 62,000 civilians were displaced due to the clashes, adding that “at least 22 individuals may bear the greatest responsibility for these violations and abuses”.

“I call on the government to take immediate steps to ensure all those responsible are brought to justice,” said Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, while describing the abuses documented in the report as “egregious.

“Impunity will only perpetuate the precarious human rights situation in the country,” Turk added.

it was earlier reported that since South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan in 2011, the world’s newest nation has lurched from one crisis to another, including a brutal five-year civil war that left nearly 400,000 people dead.