S. Sudan army laments UN ‘fake news’ over report of arms supply to civilians in Jonglei

JUBA – South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) has lamented as ‘fake news’ a United Nations report released last week that accused the South Sudan army and its rival opposition SPLA-IO, of supplying weapons to rival civilians in the country’s restive Jonglei state between February and March this year.

On Thursday, a United Nations Panel of Experts on South Sudan released a report saying commanders of South Sudan army and of the National Security Service as well as SPLA-IO supplied civilians with weapons and ammunition ahead of ethnic violence  in Greater Jonglei between February and March this year that left hundreds of people dead.

“Lieutenant General Kuc, the presidential adviser on Murle affairs, Akot Lual Arech, and the head of South Sudan People’s Defence Forces Military Intelligence, Lieutenant General Rin Tueny Mabor Deng, known as “Janafil”, armed General David Yau Yau’s Cobra Faction of SSPDF and other Murle militias during fighting in February and March,” the UN report seen by Sudans Post reads in part.

“The Panel corroborated through confidential sources and documentation that the Internal Security Bureau and Division 3 of SSPDF supported and participated in Cobra Faction operations against Gawaar Nuer and Lou Nuer villages. As part of the military support, in May, multiple confidential sources in Gumuruk, in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area corroborated that an SSPDF helicopter delivered 27 rocket-propelled grenades, 1,004 AK-47 assault rifles, 126 Kalashnikov general machine guns and ammunition to Murle militias,” it adds.

Contacted by Sudans Post, the acting SSPDF spokesman Brigadier-General Santo Domic Chol said the contents of the reports are not true describing the report itself as a fabricated news saying it is politically motivated.

“It is not true. These are fabricated news because how can the Director of National Security and chief of military intelligence support rebellion against the country +-or tribal or communal fighting between the two communities in the country. These are fabricated news, maybe somebody who has published this news has something that he wanted to achieve politically, but otherwise it is not true. These are fake news,” Domic said.

The military official advised the public to disregard the UN Panel of Experts reports.

“These are just fake news, and the republic of South Sudan with its leadership of National Security as well as the leadership of the Military Intelligence are part of this country, we are not traitors. We are people of this country and we have one South Sudan, there is no other country,” he said.