UN Accuses South Sudan Troops of Gang Rape in Recent Offensive

South Sudanese soldiers and allied groups gang-raped pregnant women and children as young as four in recent violence in the country’s north, a United Nations human-rights official said.

There were signs of “extensive use of sexual violence” in the “indiscriminate attacks” against villages in Leer and Mayendit counties that began around April, Eugene Nindorera, a representative of the UN high commissioner for human rights, said Friday in the capital, Juba. He cited an investigation by the UN mission in South Sudan.

South Sudanese army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang described the accusations as “normal allegations” leveled against the army without “substantiating them with evidence that can help us prosecute.”

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war in Africa’s youngest country that began in December 2013, with both rebels and government troops frequently accused of atrocities.