Over 30,000 South Sudanese leave country over ethnic persecution, says UN

Juba(South Sudan): Around 30,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes as a result of armed raids in a South Sudanese region beset by ethnic clashes, the UN’s emergency response agency reported on Thursday as foreign allies demanded an end to the violence.

Most recently, Armed men from Jonglei state, an eastern region plagued by gun violence, attacked communities in the nearby Greater Pibor Administrative Area on December 24, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The clashes came after clashes in South Sudan’s far north last month, which displaced thousands in Upper Nile state.

UN humanitarian coordinator in South Sudan Sara Beysolow Nyanti, said that civilians, particularly the most vulnerable women, children, the elderly, and the disabled bear the brunt of this protracted crisis.

According to OCHA, 5,000 people have sought refuge in Pibor town, and the humanitarian response has been severely stretched.

Villagers in Upper Nile state have sought refuge in swamps to escape the violence, with reports of civilians being raped, kidnapped, or murdered.

International partners, including the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and the regional IGAD bloc, expressed “grave concern” about the escalating violence in a joint statement on Thursday.

They urged South Sudan’s leaders to intervene, emphasising the “necessity of investigating and holding accountable all perpetrators of the conflict, including those instigating and inciting violence.”

Despite having large oil reserves, South Sudan is one of the poorest countries on the planet, and its leadership has come under fire for failing its people and inciting violence.

This month, Western powers including the United States and the European Union stated that South Sudan’s leaders were to blame for the deadly clashes.

Since breaking away from Sudan in 2011, the world’s newest country has lurched from crisis to crisis, including a five-year civil war between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his deputy, Riek Machar, that killed nearly 400,000 people.

Despite the signing of a peace agreement in 2018, there are still periodic outbursts of violence between the government and the opposition, and ethnic conflict between rival groups in lawless regions of the nation causes terrible harm to civilians.

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