Amnesty International said in a report published Thursday that the United Nations mission in South Sudan, known as UNMISS, and South Sudanese authorities failed to act on warnings before armed men attacked Abiemnom, a remote village near the Sudan border, on March 1. According to the rights group, between 1,000 and 1,500 armed men from neighbouring Mayom County shot residents, burned homes and looted part of the hospital. Authorities put the death toll at more than 200, including 130 town residents, 76 security personnel and seven foreign nationals.
Key Takeaways: Amnesty says UNMISS knew an attack was likely but did not reinforce its roughly three dozen peacekeepers in the area until after the March 1 assault. The official toll exceeds 200 dead, with more than 230 structures burned and most victims buried in two mass graves, according to the report. The findings come ahead of December 22 elections that analysts warn could unravel a fragile peace.
The report lands against the backdrop of South Sudan’s fragile transition under a 2018 peace agreement that ended five years of brutal civil war. In April, the UN Security Council renewed UNMISS’s mandate but cut its authorised troop ceiling from 17,000 to 12,000, even though protecting civilians remains a core task. UNMISS has described operating under budget cuts and limited resources. Amnesty said the attack may have been triggered by tensions over earlier killings of several young men from Mayom County, and questioned why reinforcements were not deployed sooner, particularly after a similar deadly attack in April 2025.
Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty’s director for East and Southern Africa, said: “Both the government and UNMISS had sufficient information and time to take more effective preventive action. Their failure to take stronger action cost lives.” UNMISS spokesperson Priyanka Chowdhury said the mission did its best with limited resources to protect and treat about 2,500 people sheltering at a protected area it set up in anticipation of the attack. She said the mission had repeatedly asked the national army to send more forces after early warnings, had known tensions were high since mid-February and sent 40 more police after the attack. Amnesty questioned why they were not deployed sooner.
Amnesty called for an independent investigation into the killings and a separate review of the peacekeepers’ response. South Sudanese authorities did not respond to two letters from Amnesty requesting information and responses to the report’s preliminary findings. African Union envoy Jakaya Kikwete urged the UN Security Council on Tuesday to help ensure the December 22 vote is peaceful. Murithi Mutiga of the International Crisis Group warned that a rushed election could be “a final blow” to the 2018 peace agreement. Chagutah said: “Behind every statistic is a story of devastation, death and destruction. Abiemnom’s survivors deserve truth, justice and assurances that such a tragedy will never happen again.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com