Amnesty says UN, South Sudan officials failed to prevent village massacre

What the report says

Amnesty International says United Nations peacekeepers and South Sudanese authorities failed to act on warnings before a deadly assault on Abiemnom, a village in northern South Sudan near the Sudan border. In a report published by Al Jazeera, the rights group said UNMISS knew an attack was likely but did not add reinforcements until after the March 1 raid, when armed men killed more than 200 people.

According to the report, between 1,000 and 1,500 fighters from neighbouring Mayom County attacked the village, shooting residents, burning homes and looting part of a hospital. Amnesty said satellite imagery showed more than 230 structures burned and that many of the dead were buried in two mass graves. The organization said the attack may have been linked to earlier killings of young men from Mayom County.

UNMISS said it was working with limited resources and had focused on protecting about 2,500 civilians who sought refuge inside its base. The mission said it had asked South Sudan’s army for more troops after early warnings. Amnesty questioned why stronger preventive steps were not taken sooner and called for an independent investigation into the killings and a separate review of the peacekeepers’ response.

The findings come as South Sudan approaches elections and amid broader concern that instability could threaten the country’s fragile peace process. The UN Security Council renewed UNMISS’s mandate in April while reducing its troop ceiling, adding context to the debate over the mission’s capacity to protect civilians.