A report presented by the African Union details the grizzly spectacle occurring in a country gripped by civil strife. The South Sudan has been in the clutches of civil war since December 2013, when South Sudanese President Salva Kiir grew weary of a supposed coup attempt by his former vice-president Riek Machar, as reported by JURIST. The report came to light Tuesday, but was not released in East Africa until Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
It was ready to show their findings last year, but decided to remain silent for fear that conflict would exacerbate, according to The Telegraph.
There are tens of thousands of people dead, with 2 million more missing or displaced, as The New York Times notes. South Sudan is split along ethnic lines thanks to the feuding leaders. The report covers a large breadth of details: the discovery of mass graves, rapes, abductions and recruitment of child soldiers. "There are reasonable grounds to believe that acts of murder, rape and sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts... have been committed by both sides to the conflict," the report reades. One part of the report details acts of forced cannibalism, noting some fighters are "draining human blood from people who had just been killed and forcing others from one ethnic community to drink the blood or eat burnt human flesh," according to The Daily Mail.
President Barack Obama traveled to South Sudan earlier this year in an effort to bring peace to the region. White House officials are weary of Obama making a strong commitment to ending war in the region, feeling that the conflict is well out of the United States' hands. However, many feel that Obama would create a lasting legacy in Africa if he could put the conflict to rest, according to Yahoo! News.
You can read the African Union's full report here.
