United Nations: South Sudan military raped, immolated girls

JUBA, South Sudan, June 30 (UPI) -- A report by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan suggests widespread human rights abuses by the Sudan People's Liberation Army, including raping and burning of girls.

The report, released Tuesday, includes testimony of 115 victims and eyewitnesses from the country's northern-central Unity State, in the counties of Rubkona, Guit, Koch, Leer and Mayom.

Witnesses say the SPLA carried out a campaign of violence against the population of the oil-producing state while fighting rebel forces there, killing civilians, looting, destroying villages and reportedly abducting and sexually abusing several girls and women, burning some to death within their homes.

After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011 and becoming the world's youngest nation, South Sudan collapsed into civil war in 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup. Both sides have since been accused of atrocities.

Ellen Margrethe Løj, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, called on the SPLA to allow human rights officers "unfettered access to the sites of these reported violations."

"Revealing the truth of what happened offers the best hope for ensuring accountability for such terrible violence and ending the cycle of impunity that allows these abuses to continue," Løj said.

South Sudan presidential spokesman Ateng Wek Ateng told the BBC he was skeptical of the report's findings but that the allegations were "too serious to ignore."

According to the report, SPLA violence in Unity State has displaced 100,000 people.

The UN estimates 120,000 South Sudanese people are currently sheltered in UN compounds. The conflict is projected to create 293,000 refugees and 1.95 million internally displaced people in 2015.