S.Sudan, UN failed to heed massacre warnings: Amnesty

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S.Sudan, UN failed to heed massacre warnings: Amnesty

South Sudan and UN peacekeepers failed to act on warnings of a massacre that ended with more than 200 dead in March, Amnesty International said Thursday.

The world's youngest country has been plagued by civil war, poverty, corruption and intercommunal violence since it was formed in 2011.

On March 1, at least 1,000 armed men from the Nuer ethnic group launched a four-hour assault in Abiemnom County, near the Sudanese border, killing more than 200 people, including children, and injuring many others.

"This is one of South Sudan's largest documented massacres since 2020," said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International's regional director for East and Southern Africa.

In its investigation, the rights group found that both South Sudanese authorities and the UN Mission in South Sudan received warnings at least two weeks in advance that a nearby community was preparing weapons and fighters to seek revenge for a previous attack.

UNMISS acknowledged that tensions had been high since mid-February, with about 1,000 people seeking shelter at its temporary base on the outskirts of Abiemnom in the 48 hours before the attack, Amnesty said.

"Both the government and UNMISS had sufficient information and time to take more effective preventive action. Their failure to take stronger action cost lives," Chagutah said.

Seven people were killed outside the rear gates of the UNMISS base, where residents had fled for protection.

"In the morning, [town residents] trying to run to UNMISS found the Nuer groups standing there and [shooting at them]," a local town leader told Amnesty.

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