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Kenya

Warring S.Sudan rivals sign peace deal

– ‘Precursors of genocide’ –

A UN peacekeeping mission report released Thursday said that “fighting continues with little hope that civilians will see any respite from the relentless violence”.

Warning of “countless” gross human rights violations, the UN report said “there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity” have been carried by both sides.

UN rights chief Navi Pillay said Friday the two leaders must “stop the killing, before the fire they have ignited makes the entire country go down in flames”.

Pillay, a former head of the UN genocide court for Rwanda, said she recognised in the UN report “many of the precursors of genocide”. READ: UN vows to prevent ‘another Rwanda’ in South Sudan.

These included hate radio urging rape and “attacks on civilians in hospitals, churches and mosques, even attacks on people sheltering in UN compounds – all on the basis of the victims’ ethnicity”.

The conflict, which started as a personal rivalry between Kiir and Machar, has seen the army divide along ethnic lines, pitting members of Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer.

The United States this week unveiled its first sanctions in response to the “unthinkable violence”, targeting one military leader from each side.

But as pressure builds to stem the brutal conflict, fears are growing that political leaders can no longer hold back their warring forces as communities spiral into cycles of revenge attacks.

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Testimonies in a report this week by Amnesty International describe civilians including children executed by the side of the road “like sheep” and other victims “grotesquely mutilated” with their lips sliced off.

“The longer ethnic rivalries are allowed to deepen and fester, the more fragmented South Sudan will become, making reconciliation and sustainable peace much more difficult to achieve,” Amnesty warned.

The conflict erupted on December 15 with Kiir accusing Machar of attempting a coup. Machar then fled to the bush to launch a rebellion, insisting that the president had attempted to carry out a bloody purge of his rivals.

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