BERLIN (AP) – South Sudan is “on the brink of an all-out ethnic civil war which could destabilize the entire region,” the head of a team of U.N. human rights investigators told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday, describing a shattered country where children as young as 2 have been raped.
Yasmin Sooka addressed the council at a meeting requested by the United States as alarm grows about the rise of hate speech by South Sudanese officials and others as civil war grinds on.
Also Wednesday, South Sudan President Salva Kiir in a speech to parliament called for a national dialogue that would attempt to redefine the country’s national identity. Kiir again called for a cease-fire in the civil war but offered few details on how it would work with multiple opposition groups across the country.
Kiir also urged an end to expressions of ethnic hatred. “I am calling upon all of you to forgive one another,” he said.
Tens of thousands have been killed in fighting in South Sudan, and more than a million people have fled the East African country. Sooka said thousands of women have been raped. The economy has been crushed; Sooka said it has the world’s highest inflation rate, at more than 800 percent in October.