Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Sunday urged [press release] the African Union to establish a hybrid court to prosecute members of the South Sudan government for war crimes committed in the Western Equatoria region. HRW said that there is evidence that killings, rapes and enforced disappearances have been committed against civilians in the region and that some of the targeting may have been ethnically motivated in a counterinsurgency operation against rebel forces. HRW also called for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website] to impose an arms embargo in an effort to reduce violence against civilians,

Last month the UN Mission in South Sudan strongly condemned [JURIST report] the violence that took place between Shilluk and Dinka youths at one of its Protection of Civilians sites in South Sudan [JURIST archive]. The OHCHR reported in January that “shocking crimes” have been committed [JURIST report] in the war-torn South Sudan.