Yakani threatens to report Tambura’s violence perpetrators to the ICC
Warning: Undefined array key 0 in /home2/cityrevi/public_html/wp-content/themes/_city/single.php on line 65
By James Chatim
The Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, has threatened to name individuals responsible for the atrocities and starving of the local population in Tambura, and enlist them at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be accountable.
Yakani said his organization in coordination with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (CEPO), has documented all the violations and individuals involved.
“Therefore, as we have been in Tambura and as I promised the country that as long as violence continues in Tambura County with its own various worst types that make our citizens pay the painful price, we are not going to be silent,” Yakani stressed.
“We are going to name individuals who have fueled all this deadly violence in Tambura. Of course, we have given the deadline as 12 September,” Yakani warned.
However, he said, as civil society, they will soon engage with the new leadership of the state governor and deputy governor to discuss how to bring peace and stability to Tambura.
He said the civilian population is being denied access to their farms in Tambura County and warned of starvation.
According to him, the CEPO field office in Western Equatoria State in collaboration with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), had been at the grassroots assessing the impact of the recent deadly clashes.
“We are aware that the civilian population in Tambura County has paid a very high price. They have been displaced several times from their villages to the town and denied access to their farms,” Yakani stated.
“They have witnessed extrajudicial killing for those who volunteer to look for food. They are forced to live in a hunger where hunger is being used as a weapon of war against the civilian population in Tambura. We have seen human rights violations which are really grave atrocities that deserve to be investigated by the International Criminal Court,” Yakani warned.
The activist continued that relentless violence in the area carries the worst categories of its type, which locals pay the painful suffering.
“Denying the population to go and collect or harvest the agricultural produce it’s actually a crime against humanity because that is a clear example of how people are using hunger as a weapon of war, where you won’t force people to die of hunger because they are unable to have food,” he said.
