South Sudan, UN failed to heed massacre warnings: Amnesty

NAIROBI: 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.