Contando a los muertos en Sudan del Sur

Counting the dead in South Sudan  


Recent massacres in Bor spawn calls to document evidence and hold perpetrators to account.

Hannah McNeish Last updated: 16 Feb 2014 13:21  


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A government soldier inspects the body of a woman lying on a street in Bor in Jonglei state in January


Bor, South Sudan - Elderly and blind, Debora Agot could only guess at the horrors taking place around her at the church. Her nostrils filled with smoke and her ears with high-pitched screams as gangs stormed the main hall, gunning down the old - including six priests - and dragging out the young women to rape before slitting their throats.

"I couldn't see anything but I could just hear the wailing and crying and then the thuds," she says, banging a tiny fist against a cracked palm to emphasise the loud bangs from gunfire that she never thought would end.

"Then the voices just went down," she says.

Agot is the only survivor of the massacre of at least 14 people at The St Andrews Episcopal Church in Bor, capital of South Sudan's Jonglei state. It is now more of a home to the dead than the living.

The church has changed hands four times since decades-old civil war scars were ripped open in mid-December. Left to fester, a feud between the country's President Salva Kiir and his erstwhile enemy and deputy Riek Machar has turned a country  - that spent almost 50 years fighting Sudan for independence - on itself, in less than three years of nationhood. And the victims of the latest power struggle are innocents trapped and targeted by ethnicity.

Bor, South Sudan - Elderly and blind, Debora Agot could only guess at the horrors taking place around her at the church. Her nostrils filled with smoke and her ears with high-pitched screams as gangs stormed the main hall, gunning down the old - including six priests - and dragging out the young women to rape before slitting their throats.

"I couldn't see anything but I could just hear the wailing and crying and then the thuds," she says, banging a tiny fist against a cracked palm to emphasise the loud bangs from gunfire that she never thought would end.

"Then the voices just went down," she says.

Agot is the only survivor of the massacre of at least 14 people at The St Andrews Episcopal Church in Bor, capital of South Sudan's Jonglei state. It is now more of a home to the dead than the living.

The church has changed hands four times since decades-old civil war scars were ripped open in mid-December. Left to fester, a feud between the country's President Salva Kiir and his erstwhile enemy and deputy Riek Machar has turned a country  - that spent almost 50 years fighting Sudan for independence - on itself, in less than three years of nationhood. And the victims of the latest power struggle are innocents trapped and targeted by ethnicity.

Bor, South Sudan - Elderly and blind, Debora Agot could only guess at the horrors taking place around her at the church. Her nostrils filled with smoke and her ears with high-pitched screams as gangs stormed the main hall, gunning down the old - including six priests - and dragging out the young women to rape before slitting their throats.

"I couldn't see anything but I could just hear the wailing and crying and then the thuds," she says, banging a tiny fist against a cracked palm to emphasise the loud bangs from gunfire that she never thought would end.

"Then the voices just went down," she says.

Agot is the only survivor of the massacre of at least 14 people at The St Andrews Episcopal Church in Bor, capital of South Sudan's Jonglei state. It is now more of a home to the dead than the living.

The church has changed hands four times since decades-old civil war scars were ripped open in mid-December. Left to fester, a feud between the country's President Salva Kiir and his erstwhile enemy and deputy Riek Machar has turned a country  - that spent almost 50 years fighting Sudan for independence - on itself, in less than three years of nationhood. And the victims of the latest power struggle are innocents trapped and targeted by ethnicity.


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Counting the dead in South Sudan  


Recent massacres in Bor spawn calls to document evidence and hold perpetrators to account.
Hannah McNeish Last updated: 16 Feb 2014 13:21

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A government soldier inspects the body of a woman lying on a street in Bor in Jonglei state in January [AP]
Bor, South Sudan - Elderly and blind, Debora Agot could only guess at the horrors taking place around her at the church. Her nostrils filled with smoke and her ears with high-pitched screams as gangs stormed the main hall, gunning down the old - including six priests - and dragging out the young women to rape before slitting their throats.

"I couldn't see anything but I could just hear the wailing and crying and then the thuds," she says, banging a tiny fist against a cracked palm to emphasise the loud bangs from gunfire that she never thought would end.

"Then the voices just went down," she says.

Agot is the only survivor of the massacre of at least 14 people at The St Andrews Episcopal Church in Bor, capital of South Sudan's Jonglei state. It is now more of a home to the dead than the living.

The church has changed hands four times since decades-old civil war scars were ripped open in mid-December. Left to fester, a feud between the country's President Salva Kiir and his erstwhile enemy and deputy Riek Machar has turned a country  - that spent almost 50 years fighting Sudan for independence - on itself, in less than three years of nationhood. And the victims of the latest power struggle are innocents trapped and targeted by ethnicity.

I was just caught up with fear and trembling as I knew it was killing, and I thought how will I escape? Only through God's will I remain.

- Debora Agot, massacre survivor


Powerless and aware that the noise and smells surrounding her were unmistakably of death, Agot waited for the bangs to restart and for death to come to her door.

"I was just caught up with fear and trembling as I knew it was killing, and I thought how will I escape? Only through God's will I remain," she says. "Now, when I hear any noise or voice, a bump of the door or anything, I might jump thinking anything might happen and the noise of guns will come."

Burying the dead

Near a mass grave where 134 people have just been buried, diggers claw through cracked earth and bleached grass to prepare another site for 200 more bodies. A clutched hand points skyward out of one of about 45 body bags. From another emerges a foot, the next a khaki-clad arm.

From the next comes nothing. The small lump barely fills one-third of the space, but it is not an uncommon sight in a conflict where even the smallest lives were not spared.

"During the war, it was never like this. The civilians were never killed like this, and so many," says Jonglei's acting Governor Aquilla Melut.

An estimated two million people died during two bush wars pitting southern guerrilla fighters against Khartoum's army and artillery. But one of the bloodiest incidents was internal and in Bor.

In 1991 forces loyal to Machar massacred an estimated 2,000 people from the country's main Dinka tribe after a split in the then rebel movement, now government, over which direction their struggle to be free from a northern hardline government should take.

 



This time around, a scuffle between ethnic Nuer and Dinka soldiers in the presidential guard in South Sudan’s capital Juba spread into gun battles in the barracks, then fighting on the streets. Tanks were sent to bulldoze Machar's home while uniformed men executed those who couldn't flee in time.

But the killing along ethnic lines then spread to whole Nuer neighbourhoods that were flattened, ransacked and burnt down as men went house-to-house targeting anyone bearing the gaar-traditional scarification of four lines across the forehead - or the unmarked unable to answer questions in Dinka language.

In a country that raised a flag in 2011 but whose unity was always pulled together by a common enmity of the north, what was a politically motivated crisis has descended into bouts of ethnic cleansing and a litany of human rights abuses by both sides. Organisations such as Human Rights Watch are pressing the United Nations and others to properly and promptly investigate such crimes before it's too late.

"Documenting evidence of violations is the first step in providing the accountability crucial for South Sudan to move forward and end the violence," says Skye Wheeler, HRW's South Sudan researcher.

"This evidence needs to be documented now, for example the dead in Bor need to be photographed and the information properly catalogued to help reconstruct events," she says.

The White Army

But the bones are being swept away with the bullet casings, the flesh fading into piles of wet clothes and skeletons are being burnt along with the rubbish left by armies of meticulous looters.

In Bor, many people plunged themselves into the Nile waters, regardless of the crocodiles and their inability to swim, as heavily armed rebels poured into villages with thousands of fighters known as The White Army - mainly teenagers wielding spears and machetes.

Michael Mayen gently lines up body bags that release noxious fumes and make bystanders gag. In less than three weeks, this human rights lawyer turned undertaker says he and other young men have collected more than 2,000 bodies. He classified them as "95 percent civilians", and almost all from the Dinka ethnic group.

Mayen gave himself the gruesome task after realising the bodies littering almost all of Bor's dirt roads would otherwise be forgotten, left to rot or picked clean by dogs and birds. He spent the first few days wracked by sobs and convulsed by coughing fits from the overpowering sights and smells of the dead. But he says he couldn't stop.

"I decided to come to know exactly the people who were killed. Was it innocent people or soldiers? When I came here I saw most of the vulnerable people were killed. Ladies, kids and disabled people were killed," he says.

Of the catalogue of horrors that includes charred infants and chopped children, the scene at St Andrews still stands out in Mayen's mind.

"When we went to the church, we found six ladies who were raped, and I'm the one who took their clothes and covered them as they left them as they are," naked and legs splayed, he says.

Melut says the church deaths take this conflict "beyond the universe", but admits a lack of vehicles to transport the dead and manpower to check vast areas means no one really knows the details of incidents beyond Bor.

He only dares to venture that "over a thousand" people died in Bor town.

"Maybe 60 percent of Bor has been cleared," he says. But this is a manual effort by teams going from house-to-house only a few kilometres from the crumpled town centre's flattened and looted market, while most of the clashes happened on the roads leading to the state capital.

Few returns

The fear of fresh fighting and memories of massacres have forced thousands to seek shelter at United Nations bases meant to house peacekeeping missions, but now resemble shanty towns, or for Bor residents, to an overcrowded site in nearby Minkamen where food and shelter are scarce.

But with rebels in five of Jonglei's 11 counties still fighting the government and the Ugandan forces that have helped them retake and hold onto Bor, few are returning. Most are day-trippers trying to search through the rubble of desecrated huts, hoping to find anything they can use to rebuild their lives or trade for increasingly scarce food.

But with rebels in five of Jonglei's 11 counties still fighting the government and the Ugandan forces that have helped them retake and hold onto Bor, few are returning. Most are day-trippers trying to search through the rubble of desecrated huts, hoping to find anything they can use to rebuild their lives or trade for increasingly scarce food.


Back at St Andrews, Reverend Thomas Kur is haunted by the ghosts of the massacre that invade his senses. The smell of blood won't leave him, despite taking out all the wooden doors, washing and bleaching the floors several times, and digging up the sodden earth where three dead women were found outside.

Standing next to a grave that the UN dug for about 20 people - including two priests shot on the Juba-to-Bor road - he chokes when talking about the huge loss of life and the indignity of all the death.

"There's no funerals. Who's there? The whole town is deserted," Kur says, bloodshot eyes bulging. "I'm now used to being in the place of the burials like this morning, where that mass grave of 134 are buried ... and the bodies are still being collected. They are in the houses, the small huts."

Local officials are appealing to international aid agencies to return to help, but at the UN peacekeeping base most staff are still holed up because of insecurity.

Reports from de-mining teams of remnants of cluster munitions discovered around Bor will further deter those mulling moves beyond the town.

Agot is too scared to move beyond her small hut. She tries to cling to her memories of better times, just before her remaining good eye clouded over, when she danced and sang for hours to celebrate the birth of a new country.

"Now, I'm living in fear of death. People have been killed and we are abandoned, without hope even for life."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/02/counting-dead-south-sudan-2014216115224123347.html

Rebel commander Riek Machar says his forces were not behind the killing of hundreds in the contested town of Bentiu.
Last updated: 22 Apr 2014 12:27

South Sudan's rebel commander Riek Machar has said his forces were not behind the massacre of hundreds of people in the contested town of Bentiu.

The UN has accused them of killing more than 200 people in one mosque alone after driving government forces from the town last week. Video shot by Al Jazeera shows bodies littering the streets of the town and the inside of the mosque.

Machar, who was dismissed as vice president by President Salva Kiir in July 2013, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that his rebels would not kill their own people.

"I contacted the field military commander in Bentiu who told me that such accusation is false. First of all we respect our people, and the majority of the forces are from the region and we can't kill our citizens," Machar said.

Al Jazeera's Anna Cavell, who travelled to Bentiu, said the conflict in South Sudan had taken on a new ethnic dimension.


She said many people at a UN base in Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state, were reluctant to speak to journalists for fear of reprisals.

"Different groups from the Dinka and Nuer of South Sudan as well as Darfuris and Misseriya Arabs from Sudan live in Bentiu, so the conflict has now taken on an ethnic dimension, and people are now looking at their neighbours very differently."

UN investigators said that hundreds of civilians were killed because of their ethnicity after rebel forces seized the town last week. The UN Mission in South Sudan condemned what it called "the targeted killings of civilians based on their ethnic origins and nationality''.

Thousands of people in South Sudan have been killed in violence and more than one million people have been forced to leave their homes since December when pro-Kiir troops and those loyal to Machar began to fight along ethnic lines after Machar was accused by Kiir of a failed coup.

Toby Lanzer, the UN's representative, told Al Jazeera on Monday that people "associated with the opposition" had used an FM radio station to broadcast hate speech in the town.

"With hate speech and violence continuing as they are, we're going to have an even greater catastrophe on our hands at the end of this year," he said.

"I think the saddest testament to the current situation is that we have had members of all communities, even those accused of perpetrating these crimes, fleeing to the UN base."

"We had 5,000 civilians a week ago in our base, now we have 22,000. We have just one litre of portable water per person for today. It is hard to believe that just a few months ago South Sudan was at peace."

South Sudan's foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that he believed Machar's rebels were responsible for the Bentiu killings. "These are his rebels. He has said ... his forces are in control so he has to answer for it", said Benjamin.

High commissioner for human rights visits conflict-torn nation to discuss high levels of civilian suffering.
Last updated: 29 Apr 2014 07:40


The UN high commissioner for human rights has warned of "huge" violations against civilians in South Sudan, as she led a team visiting the country's capital, Juba.

Navi Pillay was accompanied on Tuesday by Adama Dieng, the UN's special adviser for the prevention of genocide, and met Barnaba Marial Benjamin, South Sudan's foreign minister, to discuss the crisis, the AP news agency reported.

As we say in Africa, when two elephants fight it's the grass that suffers.

Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

"As we say in Africa, when two elephants fight it's the grass that suffers. Well, here I see civilians, ordinary people who are suffering and they are suffering huge human rights violations," Pillay said.

The visit comes after the UN Security Council expressed "horror" at the recent massacre of several hundred civilians in the city of Bentiu, which it blamed on rebel fighters.


On Monday, international mediators called on South Sudan's rebel leader to meet his rival, President Salva Kiir, to prevent an conflict fuelled by ethnicity turning into a genocide.

Alexander Rondos, an EU envoy, said such a face-to-face meeting between the rivals, which would be the first since fighting erupted in mid-December, was essential to end the "cycle of vengeance" and killings.

"The situation is now so combustible that it has all the ingredients of an all-out civil war in which the consequences could end up being genocidal," Rondos told the Reuters news agency.

S Sudan army captures key towns from rebels
Government forces wrest control of Nasir and oil hub of Bentiu from rebel forces of Riek Machar.
Last updated: 05 May 2014 06:25
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South Sudan's army has captured the key rebel base of Nasir and the northern oil hub of Bentiu following a major offensive against rebel commander Riek Machar and his forces.

Army spokesman Philip Aguer told Al Jazeera the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) recaptured the towns of Nasir and Bentiu from Machar, who has been fighting government forces of President Salva Kiir since mid-December.

We are confident that the the army is on the move to recapture all territories

Philip Aguer, South Sudan Army spokesman

"The SPLA recaptured Bentiu and Nasir, Bentiu is now in the hands of the SPLA and government forces. We are confident that the the army is on the move to recapture all territories."

Nasir, situated close to the border with Ethiopia, has been one of the main bases of Machar and his rebel army.

Government troops also moved into the northern oil hub of Bentiu, capital of the oil-rich Unity State and a town that has changed hands several times throughout the conflict.

Al Jazeera's Anna Cavell reporting from Juba said the capture of Bentiu represented a major victory for the government.

"Battles are incredibly fluid. Towns rise and fall with regularity. Bentiu itself has changed hands five or 6 times recently. So this remains fluid, but for today, it's a big gain for the government forces."

Bentiu fell into rebel hands last month, and opposition forces were accused by the Unitied Nations of massacring hundreds of civilians in the town.

Both sides in the conflict have been accused of war crimes including mass killings, rape, attacks on hospitals and places of worship, and recruiting child soldiers.

US pressure

The advance by government forces comes just days after President Kiir agreed to hold direct talks with Machar on ending the country's civil war during a visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Follow our in-depth coverage of South Sudan

Kerry had visited South Sudan on Friday and secured agreement from President Kiir to meet with Machar in Addis Ababa in the coming days, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn acting as mediator.

The top US diplomat, who brandished the threat of sanctions if either Kiir or Machar fail to end their war, said he hoped the two would agree to finally implement a moribund ceasefire deal and set up a transitional government.

President Barack Obama signed a decree last month authorising punitive sanctions, including the seizure of assets and visa bans, against anyone in South Sudan deemed to be threatening peace efforts.

The conflict in the world's youngest country has claimed thousands of lives, with at least 1.2 million people forced to flee their homes.

EXCLUSIVE: ICC to UN: Investigate Your Alleged Coverups in Darfur

BY Colum Lynch
JUNE 17, 2014 - 07:19 AM

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The International Criminal Court's prosecutor will appeal to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday to conduct a "thorough, independent and public inquiry" into allegations -- first disclosed in a Foreign Policy investigation -- that the U.N. systematically covered up crimes against civilians and U.N. peacekeepers in the U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur, also known as UNAMID.

The request by Fatou Bensouda, the ICC's Gambian prosecutor, for a U.N. investigation into wrongdoing within its own ranks is unprecedented. It comes more than two months after Foreign Policy published a three-part series detailing the mission's failure to protect civilians under their watch or to seriously investigate evidence indicating that the Sudanese government and its proxies may have targeted U.N. blue helmets.

The FP report -- which was based on thousands of pages of highly confidential internal U.N. documents from the mission's former spokeswoman, Aicha Elbasri -- prompted calls in April for a U.N. investigation by a coalition of Darfuri rebel groups, including some that are themselves accused of wrongdoing in the documents. On April 17, the leaders of three Darfuri rebel groups -- Abdel Wahid Nur, Minni Minnawi, and Jibril Ibrahim -- appealed to the U.N. Security Council, calling for an "immediate launch of investigation into the serious allegations raised by Dr. Elbasri against UN officials and the deliberate misinformation that has characterized reports on Darfur since 2008."

But the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. secretariat have yet to act on the reports. U.N. officials say they already recognized serious flaws in UNAMID's performance, and that they had conducted a major "strategic review" of U.N. operations in Darfur that recommend a series of reforms that would require better reporting from the field and urge the blue helmets to more actively protect civilians in distress.

But officials say the prosecutor's call for an independent investigation suggests she is not satisfied an in-house "strategic review" by the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations will be adequate in addressing the mission's shortcomings.

In a report to be presented to the U.N. Security Council Tuesday morning, the prosecutor's office is set to say that it "is concerned about recent allegations of manipulations of UNAMID reporting and of intentional cover-up of crimes committed against civilians and peacekeepers, in particular those committed by the Government of the Sudan forces.... These allegations are supported by documentation from the former UNAMID spokesperson."

The report -- a copy of which was obtained by Foreign Policy -- calls on U.N. Security Council governments that are members of the Hague-based international court -- Australia, Britain, Jordan, France, Luxembourg, and Nigeria -- to support the call for an investigation.

Australia, Britain, France, and Luxembourg are expected to raise concerns about the allegations in Tuesday's Security Council briefing, but it is not clear whether they will support the prosecutor's request. A British spokeswoman, Iona Thomas, said, "We are concerned about the allegations that the prosecutor references [in her report] and some of the findings and recommendations of the strategic review of UNAMID should help tackle some of the mission's failings."

The debate over holding Sudanese war criminals accountable for their crimes comes as Sudan is facing an escalation of violence, including a surge in the aerial bombardment by the Sudanese Air Force of villages in the rebel stronghold of East Jebel Marra. The emergence in February of a pro-government militia known as the Rapid Support Forces, comprised of roughly 6,000 fighters, has been followed by a series of ground offensives through south and north Darfur, where pro-government militia have torched villages and killed civilians suspected of links to the rebels.

"Reportedly, the movements and military operations of the Rapid Support Forces are arranged in coordination with the General Command of the Sudanese Army," the report states. Their operations "show a similar pattern of the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks" attributed to the pro-government janjaweed that carried out some of the worst atrocities during the height of the region's violence between 2003 and 2005.

The report also accuses a coalition of rebel groups, operating under the banner of the "Darfur joint resistance forces," of mounting attacks on civilians in north Darfur in March. The rebels displaced about 81,000 people, set homes on fire, plundered local property, and killed as many as 31 civilians.

Bensouda and her predecessor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, have struggled for years to secure U.N. cooperation for the court's efforts to hold Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and two other Sudanese officials accountable for mass atrocities in Darfur between 2003 and 2005, where as many as 300,000 civilians died. The former ICC prosecutor issued arrest warrants for the Sudanese leader in July 2008. Bashir has since been charged with genocide and other war crimes.

In Tuesday's report, Bensouda accuses Sudan of failing to abide by a slew of U.N. Security Council demands over the past decade, and expresses concern over the U.N.'s high-level contacts with senior Sudanese officials wanted by the court, citing a "lengthy" January 2014 meeting at an African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, between the U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and the Sudanese president. She calls on the U.N. to publicly explain its justification for such contacts. The prosecutor's "office notes with great concern that despite the fifty-five UN Security Council resolutions adopted on the Sudan since 2004, hardly any of them have been implemented," according to the report. "Repeated demands from the Security Council to the government of Sudan, ranging from disarming the Janjaweed to ending aerial bombardment, to ending impunity and brining justice and accountability to victims, have gone deliberately unfulfilled."

The prosecutor also cites concern about reports that UNAMID reporting may have been "manipulated" by a small group of officials within the mission, saying there "are clear warnings that the international community may not be adequately informed about the situation in Darfur," according to the report. "UN reports are an important and increasingly unique source of public information about the situation in Darfur, and must be held to the highest standard for the sake of the victims in Darfur."

AFP/ Getty Images

South Sudan child prostitution on the rise
Conflict and poor law enforcement contribute to an increasing number of child prostitutes in Juba, South Sudan.
Simona Foltyn Last updated: 29 Jun 2014 13:17


Juba, South Sudan - Child prostitution in Juba continues to rise as an increasing number of unaccompanied minors and street children risk getting trafficked or abused , due to the country ' s most recent conflict.

Mary*, a 14-year-old girl, said: "I have nobody in Juba, so I ended up here at the lodge [brothel] to make a little bit of money." A Dinka from Bor, whose father died a few years ago, she lost contact with her mother, and was taken to Juba by distant relatives. Like many other girls, she was introduced to prostitution by friends.

Susan*, another 14-year-old orphan who works in Serikat market, says she cannot live off prostitution yet because of her young age. "I cannot take more than 3 men per day … even then I must sometimes rest for a few days."

Up to 500 girls out of Juba's estimated 3,000 street children could be engaged in child prostitution. A survey conducted in September 2013 by Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC) and the French embassy found that 31 percent of 159 street girls surveyed were victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Last week, a report issued by the US State Department claimed that child prostitution in South Sudan is on the rise . "The level of displacement has really increased the risk of how many children are exposed to potential trafficking. Lots of children have lost family support and are at greater risk of being exploited," a US embassy official told Al Jazeera.

Although 2013 data suggests that over 90 percent of Juba's sex workers are foreign women from neighbouring countries such as Uganda, Kenya or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many returned to their home countries when fighting broke out at the end of last year. Young South Sudanese girls started to fill the void in a growing market, partly fuelled by the increased presence of soldiers around Juba, aid agencies say.

The breakdown of traditional family structures during the war, neglect and abuse often precede child prostitution. Cathy Groenendijk, Director of Confident Children out of Conflict, explains that internally displaced or returnee children who have lost their parents or whose parents are unable to care for them find their situation particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

" When the children grow up a bit, they start looking after themselves or even their parents. They start selling plastic bottles or polishing shoes. As the girls get older, 12 and upwards, many enter commercial sex work, " Groenendijk said.

The economics of sex trade in South Sudan
Confident Children out of Conflict
Cathy Groenendijk is the founder and director of Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC), a local grassroots organisation in Juba which is helping to get street children off the streets, and into schools. Cathy runs a children ’ s home that currently shelters 58 children, and also raises funds for school fees of children whose parents can ’ t afford them. Much of CCC ’ s work has been funded by private donations.

According to 15 sex workers interviewed by Al Jazeera in Gumbo and Jebel markets, girls pay brothel owners anywhere from $5-10 a day for a room. Younger girls often work in low-end brothels, and can earn as little as $10 per day - barely enough to pay rent, food and basic consumables such as condoms and toilet paper.

Based on these figures, a small-sized brothel housing five women could generate up to $1,500 per month, almost twice South Sudan's GNI per capita of $790 . As such, the brothels constitute a lucrative business for their owners, especially in light of the recent economic downturn.

Aid agencies further report cases of trafficking of young girls from disadvantaged rural areas for prostitution to Juba: "Some ladies promise poor families in Torit or Kapoeta to take care of their girls in Juba in exchange for domestic work. Then they keep them in houses, get clients for them and keep the money," an aid agency official who spoke on condition of confidentiality told Al Jazeera.

Regina Ossa Lullo, Director of Gender and Child Welfare at The Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare, is aware of instances of trafficking, but says the ministry has lacked resources to investigate the topic: "We need to find out who are these elderly women who bring young girls to the brothels to work for them - it's like slavery actually."

At risk of HIV/AIDS

Though no accurate figures exist on HIV prevalence in brothels, agencies working with sex workers estimate that the vast majority of girls and women in the brothels have HIV/AIDS.

Mary has tested positive for HIV/AIDS after an older friend convinced her to go to the clinic because she looked sick. "I don't want to go back for treatment. I don't believe them, I don't feel sick." She doesn't have access to free condoms, so up to 50 percent of her daily income goes towards purchasing protection.

Organisations such as PSI and International AIDS Alliance run HIV awareness campaigns and hand out condoms, yet in light of the political unrest over the past six months, funding priorities have shifted towards protection of civilians and humanitarian aid.

Alex Wani, Director of South Sudan ' s Youth United Against Aids, a community based organisation that works with sex workers says: " We handed out 9,000 condoms in November 2013, but then there was no more funding for 7 months, until we finally got new materials this week. "

Awareness of HIV transmission and protection mechanisms is more limited among younger girls. " Sometimes the young ones come to us and we train them on how to use condoms, " Jacquie, a Ugandan sex worker told us. But the younger girls are often unable to assert themselves over clients who refuse to use condoms, and many South Sudanese still believe that they are the cause for disease transmission.

Abuse and lack of law enforcement

Abuse by clients and the police is not unusual, and has been further fuelled by rising gender based violence during the recent conflict. According to several accounts, police officers conduct occasional raids on the brothels and use the presence of condoms as evidence for prostitution to extort payments from the women.

"They come with force, in uniforms and use the ladies," a woman, who preferred to remain unnamed told Al Jazeera. "If they find a condom in the house, you get arrested, taken to the police […] and charged with 500 pounds ($125)," the woman said.

The girls might be taken to the police station, but the police often can't get the brothel owners.

- Ossa Lullo, Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare

Col. James Monday Enoka, Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Interior, told Al Jazeera that no cases of misconduct or abuse by the police in brothel areas have been brought to his attention. "Many people these days wear uniforms, they may not even be police."

Prostitution in South Sudan is illegal. According to sections 253 and 257 of South Sudan's penal code, brothel owners are liable to two years of imprisonment, while harbouring minors under 18 for the purpose of engaging in unlawful sexual activity is subject to a 7 to 12 year prison sentence. Yet, in a country where young girls in their puberty are often married away, legislation on under-age sexual conduct stands in stark contrast to customary law and local culture.

Authorities have made limited efforts at eradicating brothels. Occasionally brothels are demolished by the police, causing girls to shift to other areas or to more covert private houses. According to the US State Department's 2014 Trafficking in Persons report, the government did not prosecute or investigate any offences related to child prostitution or trafficking between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014.

Ossa Lullo says the police don't take the issue seriously and often target the girls instead of the brothel owners. "The girls might be taken to the police station, but the police often can't get the brothel owners […] The owners will say that they build the house for rent, and they don't know that they are using it as a brothel. If he says something like this, he will not be arrested."
*The names of the children mentioned were altered to protect their identities
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Africa
Aid agencies warn of South Sudan famine
Disasters Emergency Committee warns agencies have less than half of the money needed for aid to prevent famine.
Last updated: 03 Jul 2014 06:00

The UN has around 40 percent of the cash it needs to prevent famine, with a shortfall of over a billion dollars [AP]

Famine will break out in war-torn South Sudan within weeks unless massive funding for food aid is provided, aid agencies have warned.

"If the conflict in South Sudan continues, and more aid cannot be delivered, then by August it is likely that some localised areas of South Sudan will slip into famine," Britain's Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) warned on Thursday, a coalition of 13 major aid agencies.

Thousands have been killed in the conflict in the world's youngest country, while more than 1.5 million have been forced to flee since the war broke out in mid-December. Peace talks are stalled.

The United Nations has around 40 percent of the cash it needs, with a shortfall of over a billion dollars (760 million euros).

"There is a very real risk of famine in some areas," DEC chief Saleh Saeed said, warning that "millions of people are facing an extreme food crisis."

Millions of people are facing an extreme food crisis

Saleh Saeed, Disasters Emergency Committee

Fighting continues despite ceasfire

Famine implies that at least 20 percent of households face extreme food shortages, there is acute malnutrition in over 30 percent of people, and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to the UN's definition.

Rains this year are hoped to be around average or slightly below, according to UN experts, with hunger caused by fighting not extreme climatic conditions.

The DEC coalition, which includes agencies such as Oxfam, Tearfund and Save the Children "have less than half the money they need to help prevent the growing food crisis in South Sudan turning into a catastrophe," Saeed added.

On Wednesday, World Food Programme - the UN's food agency - said at least 1,500 South Sudanese were crossing into neighbouring Ethiopia every week to escape the conflict in their country. The agency said more than 158,000 had already reached Ethiopia and in were need of assistance.

Fighting between forces of President Salva Kiir and troops loyal to rebel leader Riek Machar has been marked by widespread atrocities.

Kiir and Machar committed themselves last month to a third ceasefire deal, and agreed to forge a transitional government within 60 days, but fighting continues.

On Monday Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has earned a reputation for working in some of toughest war zone conditions across the world, said the situation was the worst it had seen in years, even during the two decades long war that paved the way for South Sudan's independence three years ago.
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S Sudan truce crumbles amid renewed clashes
Fighting continued over the town of Nasir for the second day in the largest offensive since May truce.
Last updated: 22 Jul 2014 10:35

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More than seven months of war has left thousands dead and displaced 1.5 million people [Reuters]

South Sudan rebels and government troops battled over the strategic town of Nasir, the United Nations has said, with rebels launching their largest offensive since an oft-broken May truce.

Heavy shooting continued for a second day with fighting continuing in the northern town and rebel forces apparently in "firm control" of the centre, UN spokesman Joe Contreras said on Monday.

The UN said on Sunday that the fresh rebel offensive "represents the most serious resumption of hostilities" since President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, rebel leader Riek Machar, met in May promising again to stick to a January ceasefire.

We call on both parties to immediately end all such attacks and fully adhere to their ... commitments to cease hostilities.

- Marie Harf, US State Department spokeswoman

The United States condemned the rebel attack on Nasir saying the town's residents "have suffered from frequent and horrific acts of violence and human rights abuses since fighting broke out in mid-December, causing widespread displacement and a worsening humanitarian crisis as civilians fear returning to their homes".

"We call on both parties to immediately end all such attacks and fully adhere to their ... commitments to cease hostilities," deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.

She said that "famine conditions" were looming in some areas of the country, making it "increasingly urgent that both parties immediately recommit themselves to inclusive, political negotiations", recalling that leaders from both sides were on notice of possible US sanctions for any human rights abuses or for threatening peace.

'Self-serving elite'

More than seven months of war has left thousands dead and displaced 1.5 million people, and aid agencies are warning of famine if fighting continues.

UNMISS, the UN mission, laid the blame for the truce violation squarely with Machar's forces.

The rebels claim to control the town, their former headquarters, located some 500km north of Juba and close to the Ethiopian border.

But the UN said that fighting was going on, with the heaviest clashes on Monday reported around the government army barracks, just west of the town.

UN peacekeepers remain in control of their base, where more than two dozen civilians are sheltering inside.

Failed peace attempts

Fighting in South Sudan had eased since May, in part due to heavy rains that have hampered troop movements.

Previous ceasefire deals have failed to stick, and peace talks in luxury hotels in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have made little progress.

Last month they halted indefinitely, with both sides refusing to attend the discussions, and blaming each other for the failure.

Earlier this month, the departing UN representative in South Sudan Hilde Johnson issued a scathing attack on the country's leaders, lashing out at both the government and rebels, calling them a "self-serving elite" responsible for a looming "man-made famine".

Civilians have been massacred and dumped in mass graves, patients murdered in hospitals and churches, and entire towns flattened as urban centres, including key oil-producing hubs, changed hands several times.

Mueren tres personas al estrellarse un helicóptero de la ONU en Sudán del Sur
La aerolínea rusa UTair, dueña del aparato, asegura que fue derribado por un misil
Reuters / El País JUBA 26 AGO 2014 - 21:55 CEST


Tres tripulantes de un helicóptero de la Misión de la ONU en Sudán del Sur (UNMISS, en sus siglas en inglés) han fallecido este martes tras estrellarse el aparato en el estado de Unidad, al norte del país. Según ha informado la organización en un comunicado, una cuarta persona también ha resultado herida en el suceso. Este ha ocurrido a 10 kilómetros al sur de la localidad de Bentiu, la capital de la región petrolera de Unity. Aunque las tropas leales al presidente Salva Kiir y a las de su rival Riek Machar firmaron una tregua en mayo, la agencia France Presse destaca que el helicóptero sobrevolaba una zona donde se informa regularmente de combates.
más información

El Ejército de Sudán del Sur y los rebeldes se acusan mutuamente de romper la paz
Los líderes sudaneses pactan parar cinco meses de violencia
Los rebeldes incitaron por radio a la matanza de civiles en Sudán del Sur

La empresa propietaria del aparato, la rusa UTair, dijo que el Mi-8 alquilado a Naciones Unidas fue derribado. "Según la información preliminar, el helicóptero fue derribado por un misil tierra-aire a tres kilómetros del aeropuerto de destino", dijo la aerolínea.

"El tripulante que ha sobrevivido está siendo tratado por un equipo de Médicos sin Fronteras", ha detallado Naciones Unidas, que ha explicado que el helicóptero cubría un vuelo de carga rutinario entre las localidades de Wau y Bentiu. La ONU, que ha puesto en marcha una investigación para determinar las causas del incidente, ha perdido el contacto con la aeronave a las 14.28 (hora local).

"Quiero expresar mis sentidas condolencias a las familias de los fallecidos y desear una rápida recuperación al tripulante herido", ha afirmado el oficial a cargo de la UNMISS, Toby Lanzer.

La misión de Naciones Unidas se creó en Sudán del Sur tras la declaración de independencia del país en julio de 2011. Los miembros de la ONU desplazados a la zona intentan proteger a los civiles después de que en diciembre de 2013 estallase un conflicto que enfrenta a tropas leales al presidente Salva Kiir y a las de su rival Riek Machar. Los dos bandos firmaron el pasado mayo una tregua, aunque ambas partes se han acusado mutuamente de haber quebrantado el cese de hostilidades. Los combates han dejado, al menos, 10.000 muertos. La UNMISS cuenta en la zona con una dotación de 12.500 efectivos militares y más de 1.300 funcionarios de policía.

Military & Defense More: Africa International law Sudan Dictators
It Was A Mistake To Indict This Dictator For Genocide

Armin Rosen

Dec. 15, 2014, 5:58 PM
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Sudan President Omar Hassan al-BashirREUTERS/StringerSudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses a crowd in North Khartoum
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) is suspending its investigation into the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan, which has killed 300,000 and displaced some 2.3 million more.

As The Guardian reported, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Dec. 12 that "she was halting investigations to 'shift resources to other urgent cases,'" and "criticized the UN security council" for failing to push for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir's indictment for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity at the ICC in 2009 was a watershed moment in international politics. The indictment was the court's first of a sitting head of state. As far as the court was now concerned, no individual was beyond the reach of international law. Accountability for human rights abuses couldn't wait until a war's conclusion.

The move was politically consequential as well. The indictment obligated 122 ICC member states to arrest Bashir if he ever set foot on their territory. It also meant the ICC saw its role as going far beyond the retrospective application of justice. In ordering Bashir's arrest, the court took an outwardly activist role in a simmering conflict with international dimensions, establishing a precedent wherein a nascent global legal system could be used as an instrument to end atrocities as they unfolded and deter atrocities before they began.

But the legacy of the indictment has been far different from what the Court and its supporters imagined.

Bashir's indictment rallied portions of Sudan's population around him and made him a focal point for leaders who bristled at the idea of a distant, Europe-based institution infringing on the sovereignty of African states.

A series of countries failed to arrest Bashir when he visited, including Kenya, Qatar, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Every visit to an ICC member state weakened the indictment and with it the authority of the court. Ironically, the indictment proved the court wasn't practically capable of enforcing its orders and that some of its membership did not want to enforce them at all.

The indictment did impose strict limits on Bashir's travel. It managed to keep up Khartoum's isolation and might have served as a source of international leverage over the regime when it decided to allow the country's oil-rich southern third to peacefully secede in July 2011, creating the independent state of South Sudan. But the indictment didn't end the war in Darfur or change the regime's behavior in the region. The conflict continues to this day, with 400,000 people displaced by violence in 2013 alone.

The Bashir indictment eroded the ICC's authority while yielding few tangible benefits in return. If the Court demonstrated that any sitting head of state was subject to its orders, Bashir countered with an example of how time and stubbornness and the international community's actual priorities could completely negate that authority. The countries that allowed Bashir to visit didn't arrest him because they didn't believe it was in their interest to do so — regardless of the commands emanating from a courtroom in another continent.

The end of the ICC's Darfur investigation should dispel the fantasy that wars can be settled by a distant collection of jurists, or that even the boldest of moral statements can be a replacement for coherent policy. Reducing the Darfur conflict to a narrowly legalistic formula may actually have made it more difficult for international actors to pursue a peace process in good faith. And the fact that the indictment meant that Bashir would face charges regardless of how the conflict's resolution might have skewed the regime's incentives and made a resolution less likely.

Bashir is deserving of sanction — he's been in power for a quarter-century and has one of the longest rap-sheets of any dictator alive.

But the solutions to the problems his regime poses don't reside in any existing legal system. And the cause of peace in his troubled country was hardly aided by delusions to the contrary.

The World's Worst Dictator Came To Power 25 Years Ago Today

Armin Rosen

Jun. 30, 2014, 6:45 PM
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Sudan President Omar Hassan al-BashirREUTERS/StringerSudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses a crowd in North Khartoum.

Twenty-five years ago, an Islamist party backed by the Sudanese military took power in the nation's capital, Khartoum. A quarter century later, Omar al Bashir's reign continues. Bashir may not be as flamboyant as the Kim dynasty or Muammar Gaddafi or as notorious as Syria's Bashar Al Assad; however, Bashir's rap sheet is the equal of just about any other autocrat on earth.

Under his rule, Sudan sheltered Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, earning it a spot on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list. Al Qaeda was expelled from the country in 1996, but Sudan still facilitates weapons flows to Hamas (and possibly to extremists in Libya). The country is also Iran's only Sunni Arab ally. Bashir's government has also aided Joseph Kony's Lord's Liberation Army in Uganda, as a reprisal for that country's support of the rebel movement in present-day South Sudan. In addition to its efforts to destabilize the Ugandan government by backing Kony's infamous army of child soldiers, Sudan has also attempted to overthrow the government of Chad with the help of its proxies inside of that country.

Within Sudan, Bashir has presided over some of the most severe state-sponsored violence anywhere on earth over the past quarter-century. The Islamic Front government escalated the war in modern-day South Sudan, turning an issue that had been trending toward a peaceful settlement in the mid-1980s into one of Africa's bloodiest civil conflicts. Even after that war ended in 2005, Khartoum-allied forces leveled the capital city of the still-disputed Abyei region, in 2011.

In Darfur, Khartoum used irregular proxies to crush a rebellion in the country's west — a continuing effort that's killed as many as 300,000 people and still leaves over 2 million displaced, including 400,000 in the past two years alone. The atrocities in Darfur resulted in Bashir's indictment in absentia for genocide by the International Criminal Court in 2010.

In August of 2012, Khartoum mobilized local militants and the national army against insurgents in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states while frequently bombing civilian targets from the air. Bashir's government has also taken steps to cut off the region to human rights observers and international aid organizations.

Most of Bashir's worst atrocities have been committed against Sudan's non-Arab communities: the Nuba people of Southern Korodfan, animists and Christians in the South, agriculturalists in Darfur, or the Beja in eastern Sudan. Yet the government's opposition to pluralism extends to the country's Arab community as well, which suffers under a regime that curtails press freedom, arrests activists, and quashes any movement toward substantive democracy. In 2012 and 2013, Khartoum erupted into limited but ongoing Arab Spring-style popular protests that were violently crushed.

Bashir has been a chameleon throughout his long career in charge of one of the most fractious countries in the world. He governed as a hardcore Islamist during his first years in power, only to tack nationalist and imprison the intellectual godfather of Sudan's Islamization push. He escalated the war against the south — only to sign the peace agreement that led to the region's independence and allow the country's oil-rich southern third to secede. And he's allowed for the existence of opposition parties while effectively neutering or co-opting all of them. Even amid a crippling financial crisis and multiple civil wars, the government is so internally factionalized that there's no one who's really capable overthrowing him.

Bashir's rule has been disastrous for Sudan, as U.S.-based Sudanese activist Azaz Shami explained to Business Insider when reached by email.

"Millions have been killed and displaced due to wars that have gone for decades on end, our economy is so fragile and operates less sufficient than midlevel markets, basic needs are dear and only half of the population has access to fresh water," Shami wrote.

In spite of all this, Bashir's most fearsome legacy might be the example he sets for other autocrats. He's living proof of what's possible if a ruler abandons any pretense of working for a country's general welfare and is willing to opportunistically discard his beliefs and promises in exchange for hanging on to power. This is the model Bashar Al Assad is arguably following in Syria, to the point of ceding control of much of the country to an organization too extreme even for al Qaeda.

Bashir, like Assad, shows the potential upside of just trying to survive at all costs.

He shows that autocrats have little to gain from reform and democratization — except as a rhetorical crutch, for misleading gullible donor states or potential allies. Dictators kill and oppress because that's their rational perceived interest.

Like Assad, Bashir offers grim proof that this perception reform is dangerous to entrenched leaders might be absolutely correct. Dictators don't change, because figures like Bashir demonstrate that they have no real reason to. Change is dangerous for these leaders, but recalcitrance and self-preservation has a proven and deeply worrying track record.

This approach might preserve regimes — but it ruins entire nations in the process. Shami wrote of the significance of Monday's milestone, "The 25th anniversary of this regime crowns the darkest time of all time in the modern history of Sudan."

Never Ending Violence in South Sudan: Foreign Intervention, Militant Secessionism, Fake Propaganda
By Sufyan bin Uzayr
Global Research, January 15, 2015
Region: sub-Saharan Africa
Theme: US NATO War Agenda
sudan

Back in 2011, South Sudan broke away from Sudan and declared itself as an independent state. Western media verticals, as well as many pro-secession pundits claimed that statehood will usher in a new era of prosperity and growth for South Sudan, and eventually, even Sudan will have to acknowledge the superiority of the South Sudanese state.

Apparently, those dreams are yet to come true, and with things going the way they currently are, prospects do not seem promising for South Sudan.

In fact, I have written about South Sudan multiple times: back in 2013 itself, I termed South Sudan to be a failed state — I am yet to be proven wrong. In 2014, troubled by the loss of life and property in South Sudan, I questioned the logic of secession, and even thought of ways to fix the blunder named South Sudan.

However, all said and done, South Sudan continues to justify itself as a failed state.

Never-Ending Violence

The South Sudanese government and the rebels continue to blame each other for the ongoing destruction. Thousands of people have so far been massacred, and infrastructure is in ruins. Hospitals, churches, and especially masjids — everything is falling prey to the civil war in South Sudan.

According to United Nations, over 50,000 people have so far been killed in the conflict. Furthermore, over 1.9 million people have been displaced (since December 2013), and nearly 103,000 civilians have sought refuge in UN bases all around the country.

Sure, peace talks are also on the way. Yet, with each failed agreement, the condition worsens and both the parties, be it the government or the rebels, indulge in a new bout of fighting. Humanitarian issues seem to be of secondary importance in South Sudan.

International Response

United Nations peacekeepers are already active in the country, whereas the African Union too has launched a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the atrocities committed against civilians in South Sudan.

International aid did manage to combat the imminent famine in 2014, but due to continued fighting, displaced populace and a possibly dry season, food security still remains a challenge in South Sudan.

As such, diplomatic meetings, negotiations and arms embargo — everything is being used, but the crisis in South Sudan keeps getting from bad to worse.

The Final Comment

Amidst such hostilities, humanitarian crisis and never-ending warfare, it has become obvious that South Sudan is, by all means, a country that should not exist in the first place.

When South Sudan seceded from Sudan, most of its supporters claimed that Sudan will prove to be the weaker one, and South Sudan, riding on the shoulders of Western imperialism, will develop at an impressive rate. However, none of these claims have materialized.

Today, Sudan, in spite of having issues of its own, is managing to run a tight ship. Agreed, there are many things that Sudan needs to improve, but it is still somehow holding on, and despite poverty, the Sudanese civilians are not regularly consuming bullets and bombs for dinner.

South Sudan, on the other hand, can at best be called a mistake. It is one country that should never have been created — the southern part of Sudan was just incapable of governing itself back in 2011, and even today, the condition has not changed at all.

Foreign intervention, fake propaganda, and militant secessionism of a handful of South Sudanese rebels together led to the balkanization of Africa’s largest country. But the new state of South Sudan has repeatedly failed to get its act together, and having emerged as one of the biggest errors in the history of nation-building, there is nowhere left for South Sudan to go. The only viable and sane option will be to acknowledge the fallacy of secession and re-join Sudan — but neither the international community nor the South Sudanese leaders or rebels are strong-willed enough to swallow that.

As a result, the devastation in South Sudan continues at a rapid pace, with the average civilians paying the ultimate price, simply because they are residing in a country that does not deserve to be called a country.

Sufyan bin Uzayr writes for several print and online publications, and regularly blogs about issues of contemporary relevance at Political Periscope (www.politicalperiscope.com). You can connect with him using Facebook (https://facebook.com/sufyanism) or Google+ (https://plus.google.com/+SufyanbinUzayr?rel=author) or email him at sufyan@politicalperiscope.com