from RAJI BASHIR in Khartoum, Sudan
Sudan Bureau
KHARTOUM, (CAJ News) – NO less than 739 people have been killed in South Sudan since the beginning of the year as the country lurches into more crisis.
The death toll is much higher, considering the figure is for the first quarter of 2025.
The killings represent a 120-percent increase from the 352 people that were killed in the last quarter of 2024.
Thus, violence against civilians in the world’s newest country is escalating to record levels, according to the new report by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
It documents 1 607 victims in the first quarter of this year, the highest number in any three-month period since 2020.
Some 679 people were injured, 149 abducted and 40 subjected to conflict-related sexual violence between January and March 2025.
Warrap State recorded the highest number of civilians affected, with 428 deaths and 298 injuries, followed by Central Equatoria with a 260 percent increase in victims and the most abductions.
The number of child victims increased sharply from 114 to 171. Women and girls continued to be disproportionately affected by CRSV and other acts of sexual and gender-based violence, together accounting for 98 percent of documented victims.
This week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) lamented how recently, attacks on girls and young women in South Sudan illustrated how they were at risk and lacked adequate protections.
On June 25, armed men in Pochalla North, Jonglei state reportedly abducted four female students as they travelled to sit for secondary school exams. They remain missing.
On June 19, the police said they had arrested seven suspects in the gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in the capital, Juba.
An alleged video of the attack spread online and generated public outrage.
In May, armed youth surrounded a girl’s boarding school in Marial Lou, Warrap, trapping at least 100 students inside.
Most victims were attributed to community-based militias or civil defense groups (66 percent), while unidentified, opportunistic armed elements were responsible for 22 percent.
“It is the primary responsibility of the Government to protect civilians and prevent conflicts, which continue to cause immense harm to communities across the country,” said Guang Cong, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, UNMISS.
“Together with regional and international partners, UNMISS calls for concerted, collective efforts at the national, state and local levels to address the underlying causes and drivers, facilitate the resolution of grievances through dialogue and hold perpetrators accountable in order to end the deadly cycle of violence.”
Conflict has escalated after deputy president, Riek Machar, was placed under house arrest in March.
Machar and President Salva Kirr are in an uneasy inclusive administration since a peace deal in 2018.
The world’s newest country, it gained independence in 2011, only to degenerate into civil war two years later after the fall out.
The peace deal has been violated several times.
– CAJ News