By Ruot George
The so called “unknown gunmen” claimed the lives of 5700 people in South Sudan in 2021, the South Sudan Law Society said.
Unknown gunmen are referred to cases of gun attacks which have either never been investigated or resolved in South Sudan.
The revelation comes in a report following a research undertaken to establish response of women towards violence affecting them.
“5700 people were killed by the unknown gunmen, 824 of these cases in Juba,” Justice Ajonye Perpetua Paya, the Deputy Chairperson for South Sudan Law Society said at a Transitional Monthly Forum in Juba.
“About 1000 of the people killed by the unknown gunmen in 2021 were girls,” Paya said.
The report, according to her, also shows that women in South Sudan fear to report violators and perpetrators of gender-based violence.
“Women fear to report GBV violators because they are getting powerful every day in South Sudan,” Paya said.
The report identified several gaps in the transitional justice programs including the narrow space for women’s participation and fear that all the documented violations will be included in the Transitional Justice programs of actions.
It urged all the stakeholders to involve women in decisions in line with bringing peace in South Sudan.
