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South Sudanese Government Forces Deliberately Suffocated At Least 60 Men And Boys

Witnesses heard cries of distress coming from the container and said that the military officials were aware that the container had no form of ventilation. According to one witness, a commander ordered soldiers to open the container, remove four dead bodies, and reseal the container, leaving the surviving detainees inside.

The South Sudanese military deliberately suffocated over 60 men and boys in a shipping container and dumped their corpses in a field, according to a new Amnesty International report.

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The atrocity occurred in October 2015 on the grounds of the Comboni Catholic Church, which had been taken over by government forces. 

According to eyewitnesses, government troops arbitrarily arrested dozens of men and boys in Luale village and Leer town and proceeded to force them into one or more shipping containers located at the church.

Witnesses heard cries of distress coming from the container and said that the military officials were aware that the container had no form of ventilation. According to one witness, a commander ordered soldiers to open the container, remove four dead bodies, and reseal the container, leaving the surviving detainees inside.

All but one of the remaining detainees died by the next morning.

“We could see people inside and they were not alive…what we saw was tragic…the container was full of people. They had fallen over one another and on to the floor. There were so many people,” an eyewitness said.

The soldiers took the corpses to a field approximately one kilometer northeast of Leer town and dumped them into two pits.

The South Sudanese government has not prosecuted the perpetrators nor has it compensated relatives of the victims.

“Dozens of people suffered a slow and agonizing death at the hands of government forces that should have been protecting them. These unlawful killings must be investigated and all those responsible brought to justice in fair trials without recourse to the death penalty,” said Lama Fakih, Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty International. 

Ms. Fakih has called upon the African Union Commission to establish a hybrid criminal court provided for in the August 2015 peace agreement and to open investigations into this atrocity among other war crimes.