No body count has been released for the South Sudan city of Bentiu, perhaps because too many exist to be counted.
News released from the United Nations South Sudan mission describes bodies in piles and piles. Other agencies report streets that are littered with dead bodies.
One report said hundreds of decomposing bodies were inside a mosque with others inside a Catholic church. There were even bodies at the local hospital.
A putrid stench of decomposing remains has filled the air while dogs and vultures were eating scalps, limbs and other flesh said one of the reports.
The White House announced that many bodies were being collected by a number of bulldozers and then being dumped into mass graves.
A statement by the White House said the conscience is shocked by the accounts of the attack.
The capital of Unity a state in South Sudan is Bentiu. It is described routinely as oil-rich, but this tragedy has pushed the country, the youngest in the world, into another chapter of brutal violence.
Since fighting between two rival forces erupted in December of last year, more than 1 million people had to leave their homes and nearly 800,000 of them were displaced internally and 200,000 became refugees in Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya.
However, these latest killings are different from previous ones. The rebels did not make any secret of what their plans were. On a local radio show, rebel commanders warned ethnic groups, everyone but the Nuers, that the rebels were coming to kill them. The commanders called on other groups to rape all women who were non-Neur.
People sought out refuge inside places of healing and worship. However, as with other towns, there was none when the killing started April 15.
The U.N. has identified the killers as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition army that is led by Nuers. Its leader is Machar the former Vice President of the country.
The group went from church to mosque to hospital separating everyone by religion and ethnicity and then shooting the majority of the ones who were not Nuer.
If reports can be believed, some say things will get much worse before they can better if that is imaginable.
Roxanne Briean
Latest posts by Roxanne Briean (see all)
- Former Virginia Tech Freshman Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison for Stabbing a Girl to Death - June 28, 2018
- San Francisco Woman Threatened to Call Police on Girl Who Sold Ice Water for Disneyland Trip - June 25, 2018
- Epping Woman Sentence to 20 Years of Prison for Mutilating Homeless Woman’s Children - June 12, 2018