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mobile and money. They pointed their gun at Jumaa and shot him in the
belly and in the mouth.
A priest from Western Equatoria from the Moro ethnic group, who had remained in town
following the opposition attack on January 14, said an opposition soldier almost killed his
son. The soldier had arrested his son, tied his hands, and took him to the river at gunpoint.
“He started to fire in the air, then recognized me and let my son go,” he recalled.
Ethnic Targeting by Government Forces in January
Human Rights Watch received consistent reports from many sources that government
soldiers targeted ethnic Nuer males, particularly of fighting age, for arrest and killings in
the period between the government’s regain of control of Malakal on January 20, 2014,
and several weeks later when the opposition attacked a third time. Nuer IDP leaders
suggest that the brutal attacks by opposition forces and white army in late February
were in reprisal for the targeting of Nuer youth by government forces that occurred
during this period.
On January 20, the day the government re-took Malakal, a group of soldiers arrested a 20-
year-old student with two friends as they were walking to the UN compound for safety. The
soldiers tied the youths’ hands with rope, put them in a vehicle, and then handed them
over to other soldiers at a military barracks where they shot all three of them, killing two on
the spot. “They lined us up outside of a building and started shooting at us,” he said.
“When they shot at me I just fell down.” The three of them were left for dead, but an hour
later another soldier discovered that one youth was alive and took him to the hospital. His
injuries required amputation of his right hand.
Another student, 18, said that on January 24 a group of government soldiers arrested him
and two other Nuer youths at their home in Muderia area, took them to the riverbank, and
shot at them. “They took us because we are Nuers,” he said. “They walked us to the
riverside near the hospital. They told us to sit down and then they shot us. I tried to run
into the river after I was shot and I fell into the water.” The student was shot in the
buttocks and the thigh, and could not walk. A soldier found him later that day and took
him to a church. The student believes the other two youths were killed.
71 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | AUGUST 2014