Geneva – The UN Human Rights Council has set up a monitoring mission to South Sudan in reaction to reports of government-sanctioned mass rapes that may constitute crimes against humanity, the UN said on Thursday.
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In an undisputed decision, the Geneva-based council decided that a watchdog commission would report on the situation in the country that had been engulfed in a violent internal conflict for over two years.
The commission was also tasked with confirming reports of massive human rights violations over the next 12 months.
The UN human rights office said in a report that the army and government-affiliated militia had not only systematically raped women and girls, but that they also killed civilians by burning them and cutting them into pieces.
South Sudan has been engulfed by violence since a power struggle between Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar evolved into a military conflict in December 2013.
It added that tens of thousands had been killed and more than 2.3 million displaced.
The UN rights office said that while all parties to the conflict had committed serious human rights violations, the government side bore the greatest responsibility.
The South Sudanese government had said it would support the UN monitors to carry out their work in the country.
“The government of South Sudan will take its primary responsibility to address accountability and reconciliation,’’ the country’s Geneva ambassador Akech Chol Ahou Ayok told the UN rights council. (dpa/NAN)
