A new UN report says that officials who hurt civilians should be investigated by the police and charged with crimes.

In a new report, a group of investigators backed by the United Nations says that several South Sudanese officials have broken important human rights laws and should be held responsible for their actions.

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Monday, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan released a new report that named top government and military leaders who were responsible for widespread murder, rape, and sexual slavery. The report also said that the state was responsible for these crimes.

The commission, which spent a year looking into six states in South Sudan and released a summary of some of its findings in March, said that none of the people named in the final report had been punished for their crimes.


Yasmin Sooka, the chair of the commission, said, "Over the past few years, our findings have shown again and again that letting serious crimes go unpunished is a major cause of violence and misery in South Sudan."


"So we have taken the step of naming more of the people whose roles in gross human rights violations mean they should be investigated and brought to justice."


The report names Governor Joseph Monytuil of Unity State and Lieutenant General Thoi Chany Reat of the South Sudan People's Defence Forces as those responsible for killings in Mayom County in August 2022 that were ordered by the government.

Four rebel officers who had been captured were killed quickly by government troops. The killings were caught on video and shared widely. Three were killed by firing squad, and the fourth was set on fire in a hut while still alive.


Gordon Koang, who is the county commissioner of Koch, is also named in the report. Between February and April 2022, he was accused of leading horrible attacks on civilians in nearby Leer County.


Other high-ranking officials in the states of Warrap, Upper Nile, Jonglei, and Equatoria were found to have done things that should be looked into further or investigated.


"The Commission found that even though the Government of South Sudan has set up special committees to look into a number of things, none of them have led to any kind of accountability," the panel said in a statement.

"People in the government and military who were involved in these serious crimes are still in their jobs."

The Associated Press said that the officials could not be reached right away for comment.


The government has said that the commission is meddling in its own affairs and has turned down the panel's past findings.


South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011, but two years later, it fell apart into a civil war that destroyed the world's newest country.


Before a peace deal was signed in 2018, close to 400,000 people had died. However, key parts of the deal have not been met, and the country is still torn apart by armed violence.


The African Union said it would set up a court to try war criminals and give victims justice, but it never happened.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES