Sudan Used Chemical Weapons against Civilians in Darfur, Says Amnesty

War crimes condemned as study uncovers horrifying evidence of chemical attacks by government forces on civilians, including babies and young children.

The Sudanese government has allegedly been using chemical weapons against civilians, including babies and young children, in the Darfur region. According to a recent report, Amnesty International carried out dozens of interviews and analyzed footage from the Jabel Mara area, documenting victims of aerial and artillery attacks which spread “black smoke”, which poisoned the air, causing severe injury and death by suffocation. The human rights group said the chemical attacks killed up to 250 people, mostly children, and represent a “new low” in the list of serious abuses perpetrated by government forces in the region.

Read the full article at The Guardian.

A Hollywood Spotlight on South Sudan’s Horrors

The little-known new nation of South Sudan is attracting the attention of two respected Hollywood actors, which isn’t as incongruous as it might sound to some.

After all, George Clooney and Don Cheadle are known for their social activism, and they are once again spotlighting a sobering cause.South Sudan is, perhaps, the closest the thing to hell on Earth these days. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported last week that the number of people who have fled the African nation passed the 1 million mark. Another 1.6 million South Sudanese – some 20 percent of the nation’s population – are displaced as a result of the vicious civil war between the Dinka and Nuer ethic groups in the world’s newest country. Almost 200,000 refugees have fled South Sudan since July. Really, they are ghost refugees, exhausted and depleted from days of walking the bush without food or water, scarred by what they have fled. Children who’ve lost one or both parents.

By https://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/ann_corkery/

Read the Full Article Here >>

George Clooney’s Group Tracked South Sudanese Leaders Using Social Media

Hollywood actor and global activist unveils undercover investigation of South Sudan’s Top Leaders

 Investigators at The Sentry, an initiative co-founded by George Clooney, have delivered a damning report exposing the war profiteering carried out by South Sudan’s top government leaders. During a press conference on Monday, Clooney warned international leaders that the raging civil war will only continue to get worse if action is not taken immediately. The group compiled evidence from Facebook and Instagram to confirm how official’s spent the profits they made from controlling South Sudan’s natural resources. According to Clooney, the two-year investigation revealed South Sudanese officials have amassed wealth from arms deals, oil and gambling, all the while subjecting their own people to unspeakable atrocities.

Pictures posted on Instagram and Facebook show relatives and subordinates of South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and his opponent, Riek Machar, live outside of their own war-torn nation in lavish mansions or five-star hotels and drive luxury vehicles. Social media postings by President Kiir’s children also show them living large outside of South Sudan, riding jet skis with friends, partying on boats, and clubbing and drinking with friends.

Read the full ABC News article here.

South Sudan at a ‘Pivot Point’

“Since the civil war began in South Sudan in December of 2013, the news from one of the world’s newest countries has been consistently gruesome — targeted ethnic killings, rape, kidnappings and disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, recruitment and use of child soldiers, massive social upheaval, millions of hungry people and an economy on the brink of total collapse.”

Click here to read the full Washington Post Article.

The War the World Forgot

People and Power investigates the forgotten war taking place on the borders between North and South Sudan.

Former Slave to Run for South Sudan in Olympic Marathon

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – South Sudanese Olympic athlete Guor Marial may not be a hot medal tip for Sunday’s marathon, but the former slave’s road to Rio is one of the most astonishing stories of the games.

As a teenager Marial was forced to run for his life during Sudan’s long civil war in which he lost 28 members of his family, was kidnapped twice and ended up in servitude.

CLICK HERE FOR HIS INSPIRING STORY

UN: South Sudan Recruits Child Soldiers as Civil War Looms

South Sudan’s government has recruited child soldiers, as young as twelve years old, in the past week to prepare for a renewed conflict, according to an internal United Nations document obtained by The Associated Press.

A whole village of boys was pressed into joining the army by a senior politician acting on President Salva Kiir’s instructions, the document suggests. The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF said more than 16,000 children have been recruited into armed groups since December 2013 when the civil war first erupted.

UN Security Council Backs More Troops to Halt War in South Sudan

The United Nations Security Council approved an expanded mandate for its peacekeepers and added an additional 4,000 troops to its mission in South Sudan, rebuffing government objections, in a bid to halt an all-out civil war in the oil-producing country.

The Security Council on Friday granted additional powers to peacekeepers enabling them to use “all necessary means” to protect UN personnel and to take “proactive” measures to protect civilians from threats.

“The whole point about this process is fighting needs to stop and the peace process needs to be embarked on with some seriousness,” said Peter Wilson, U.K. deputy permanent representative to the UN. “The government of South Sudan has an opportunity to prove to the world and more importantly to its own people that it is serious about peace.”

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