UNICEF blames pro-state militia for abducting S. Sudan kids
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concern over the abduction of scores of male kids last month in northeast of South Sudan, warning that the kidnappers may have been pro-state militias.
UNICEF's warning on Sunday came following its recent estimate that 89 boys, some as young as 13, were kidnapped by an armed group in the riverside town of Wau Shilluk, which is located in a government-held region in the oil-rich Upper Nile state.
"The organization now believes the number of children may be in the hundreds," the international agency announced in its Sunday statement, pointing out that the suspected abductors were linked to a "militia... aligned with the government's SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) forces."
South Sudan’s presidential spokesman, Ateny Wek Ateny, strongly censured the abductions last month, insisting that “the government of South Sudan will not tolerate the use of our children for violence."
"This is the equivalent to the Boko Haram of South Sudan," he said at the time, referring to Nigeria’s notorious Takfiri terrorist group that has also engaged in kidnapping children.
UNICEF said its inquiry shows that government-linked militia chief, Johnson Olony, who controls the area where the boys were abducted and has already been blamed by rights groups for using child soldiers, is behind the kidnappings.
After the abductions were first reported, UNICEF’s South Sudan Director Jonathan Veitch said, "The recruitment and use of children by armed forces destroys families and communities."
Meanwhile, the UN body estimates there are at least 12,000 children used by both sides in South Sudan's persisting conflict.
The country plunged into violence in December 2013 when armed clashes erupted between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and militants led by his rival and former vice president, Riek Machar.
The fighting between the two sides continues despite several truce deals and amid peace talks already underway in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict while 1.5 million have been displaced and 2.5 million more are reported to be in dire need of food aid in South Sudan, which declared its independence from Sudan in 2011.
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