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Large scale damage, including extensive burning in Bentiu and especially in Rubkona took
place during the government recapture of the towns by government forces together with
JEM fighters. Most civilians fled their homes ahead of the arrival of these forces. Those who
remained were targeted during the attack.
The government attack included massive destruction of civilian property. Almost the entirety
of Rubkona market and neighborhoods around the market and across the main road were
burned to the ground during the attack, leaving only blackened structures. Large areas in
Bentiu town were also burned, including major markets on either side of the main road.
As the government and JEM forces first entered Rubkona on January 10, 2014, along a road
running past the UNMISS base, as many as 2,000 Dinka sheltering in the base, including
some soldiers who had fled there after Koang’s defection, jumped over the fence and
joined the attacking forces. Witnesses watching from the UNMISS base described how
some men from this group then viciously beat civilians living next to the base and burned
numerous huts. Two witnesses saw some of these men being given weapons including
machetes by the attacking forces.
At least five people were killed in attacks outside the UNMISS base, including an old
woman who was burned in her hut. 148 “They came, pushed me in and then set my house on
fire,” said another old woman who still had extensive burns on her face and arms when
she spoke to Human Rights Watch. “They were singing in Dinka when they came up to me.
When they saw that I had (traditional scarification) marks they identified me as Nuer.” UN
officials and aid workers said that after the Dinka joined the melee many of them later
returned to the camp during the following days, heavily laden with looted materials.
Civilians who attempted to flee to the UNMISS base on the day of the government attack
were shot and killed as the forces moved towards Bentiu through Rubkona. In the
148 Human Rights Watch interviews with witnesses (names withheld), Bentiu, January 30, 2014. Those killed in the attacks
included the old woman Nyaruach Makon, a man Gatchek Baiyuk, a 60-year-old man Ruot Gel, his nephew Weigok Jany and
another man 60-year-old Kwondit Gai. One witness watching from the UNMISS described the attackers as “young men,
completely out of control” but said he had also seen the men, who may have been amongst those who ran out of the UNMISS
base being given weapons by the attacking government forces.
SOUTH SUDAN’S NEW WAR 60