UN accuses South Sudan of carrying out ethnic killings in Yei

Geneva/Juba, May 19, 2017 (SSNA) — The United Nations has accused South Sudanese government troops of carrying out ethnic killings in Yei, saying at least 114 civilians were killed by Juba-backed forced.

The Geneva-based office of the United Nations human rights said in a report on Friday that attacks that resulted in the death of civilians were carried out between July 2016 and January 2017.

“Attacks were committed with an alarming degree of brutality and, like elsewhere in the country, appeared to have an ethnic dimension,” the report reads in part.

“These cases included attacks on funerals and indiscriminate shelling of civilians; cases of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls, including those fleeing fighting; often committed in front of the victims’ families,” the report added.

However, South Sudan’s national army (SPLA) called the report “baseless.”

The UN warned that crimes committed could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.