ENTEBBE, Uganda (AP) – South Sudan’s violent conflict is now genocide that is being perpetrated along tribal lines, a senior British official said, urging foreign leaders to do more to force the country’s government to end the conflict in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.
Priti Patel, the U.K. secretary of state for international development, said in an interview late Wednesday that there are “massacres taking place, people’s throats being slit” amid what she called a “scorched earth policy” in the world’s youngest country.
She described the situation in South Sudan as “absolutely abhorrent and inhumane.” The country also faces a hunger crisis, with famine declared in two counties.
This week Patel visited South Sudan, where she met South Sudan President Salva Kiir, whose government is accused of blocking food aid to some areas.
Villages are being burned down, women are being raped, and food is being used as a weapon of war, Patel told The Associated Press in neighboring Uganda, where she also visited some of the refugee settlements in which over 8000,000 South Sudanese are sheltering. Thousands of refugees continue to flee across the border amid increasing reports of targeted ethnic killings perpetrated by mostly government forces.