Sudan peacekeeping head sacked

Forces abandoned posts, refused to help aid workers, report says

UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon sacked the commander of the peacekeeping force in South Sudan on Tuesday following a damning report showing failure to protect civilians during violence earlier this year in Juba.

The report from a UN special investigation found peacekeepers had abandoned their posts and failed to respond to pleas for help from aid workers under attack in a nearby hotel compound, according to a summary of the report.

“During the attack, civilians were subjected to gross human rights violations including murder, intimidation, sexual violence and acts amounting to torture perpetrated by armed government soldiers,” the inquiry found.

Despite multiple requests by the UN mission’s joint operations centre for peacekeepers to respond to the attack on Hotel Terrain, each contingent turned down the request, indicating their troops were fully committed.

After nearly four hours, South Sudan’s National Security Service extracted most of the civilians.

However, three women international aid workers were left behind and the peacekeeping mission was quickly made aware of this.

One of the women managed to call the UN mission but the security officer was dismissive of her appeal for assistance and did not call her back when her phone credit expired.

A private security company, dispatched by an aid group, rescued the women the following morning.

Ban was alarmed by the serious shortcomings identified, “which were evident in the mission’s failure to fully implement its mandate to protect civilians and UN staff during the fighting”, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Ban established the inquiry to assess the response by the UN peacekeeping mission, known as Unmiss, to the outbreak of several days of fighting in Juba between South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s troops and soldiers loyal to his rival, Riek Machar.

“A lack of leadership on the part of key senior mission personnel culminated in a chaotic and ineffective response to the violence,” according to the executive summary of the report.

The UN inquiry found that peacekeepers did not operate under a unified command, “resulting in multiple and sometimes conflicting orders to the four troop contingents from China, Ethiopia, Nepal and India. On two occasions Chinese peacekeepers had abandoned their positions.”

Ban had asked for the immediate replacement of the Unmiss force commander, Lieutenant-General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki, of Kenya, Dujarric said.

UN South Sudan envoy Ellen Loj will step down at the end of the month.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in response that UN members needed to review the situation facing peacekeepers and increase capabilities. – Reuters