UN urges South Sudan to stop ethnic conflict

KHARTOUM (AFP) - South Sudan must take "pro-active" measures to halt ethnic violence that has killed more people in the region this year than the more high-profile conflict in Darfur, the UN human rights rapporteur in Sudan said on Friday.

A series of clashes between rival ethnic groups have left more than 1,000 people dead since March in a region still recovering from two decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the mostly Christian or animist south.

"I ask the government (to) take more pro-active action to prevent this kind of tribal conflict," Sima Samar told AFP in an interview.

The south has long been dogged by cattle-rustling and periodic outbreaks of violence between rival groups but the ferocity of recent attacks has shocked many.

"The concern of the local people was that before they used to attack and raid the cattle, but this year it was more on the population, on the civilian," Samar said as she wrapped up a six-day visit to Sudan.

She said the autonomous regional government in the south needed to do more to protect the civilian population by building up its institutions, particularly the police and judiciary.

"There should be some kind of accountability for the people who commit these crimes, terrorising society and displacing people," she said.

"Even if they have a good law, it will not protect the people."

In May fighting broke out in Upper Nile state between the Lou and Jikany branches of the Nuer. In March and April, deadly fighting in two areas of Jonglei state pitted the Lou Nuer against the Murle.

Samar said that the international community also needed to focus more attention on south Sudan and its reconstruction following the 2005 end of the civil war in which 1.5 million people were killed and an estimated four million fled their homes.