Geneva - About 100 000 people taking refuge in UN-protected camps in South Sudan have been trapped there by “staggering” violence in the north of the country, a UN official said on Tuesday.
People have been taking refuge in “protection of civilian” sites, or POCs, since December 2013, when fighting between supporters of President Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar erupted. Thousands have been killed since then.
The main POCs in the north, at Bentiu and Malakal, are now cut off, the representative for UN children's agency, UNICEF, in South Sudan, Jonathan Veitch, said.
“Because of the fighting that's been going on we haven't been able to fly in. We're trying to fly in every day and we hope that we can gain access to those areas soon,” he told a regular UN briefing in Geneva by phone from Juba.
“Survivors reported to UNICEF that whole villages were burned to the ground by armed groups while large numbers of girls and women were taken outside to be raped and killed, including children as young as seven,” Veitch said.
“I don't know why people would do that to children, it's absolutely staggering that it's taking place.”
Veitch said the attackers were opportunistically taking as much ground as they could before the rainy season sets in. He the conflict involved many factions, militias and tribes, and some of the violence was between people from the same grouping.
Some survivors had reported attackers saying they were killing children to prevent revenge attacks in future, he said.
The UN has a 10 000 strong peacekeeping force which is trying to stop the violence spilling into the camps, where humanitarian workers run schools and clinics.
Those aid workers were now unable to leave the POCs and were often in bunkers because of shooting nearby, Veitch said.
Bentiu POC held 52 908 people on May 7 and Malakal 30,410, but Veitch said Bentiu's population was now about 65 000.
Many other civilians were in hiding and could not be reached, with “zero” humanitarian access having been possible beyond the POCs in recent weeks, he said.
Reuters