S. Sudan denies use of starvation as weapon, says report is ‘fake’ as said by US Trump

JUBA – South Sudan government has refuted a report by the United Nations last week that it forces have used starvation as weapon of war saying it agree with Trump in describing US agencies as fake.

The United Nations Human Rights Council in South Sudan said in a report last week that South Sudan government and its forces have used starvation as a weapon to prosecute certain sections of South Sudanese communities.

“With 7.5 million South Sudanese currently requiring humanitarian assistance, we have found that food insecurity in Western Bahr el Ghazal, Jonglei, and Central Equatoria States is linked directly to the conflict and therefore almost entirely human-induced,” said chair of UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, Yasmin Sooka last week.

“It is quite clear that both Government and opposition forces have deliberately used the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in these States, sometimes as an instrument to punish non-aligning communities, as in the case of Jonglei,” she added.

However, speaking to reporters in Juba on Wednesday, information minister and government spokesman Michael Makuei Lueth rubbished the reports and accused people he didn’t name that he said are living in Juba hotels of  creaking fake reports.

“There is nothing as such, we have never used hunger as a weapon or starve the people of South Sudan in order to fight our war. Never,” Makuei said.

He added that release of such reports is what make US president Donald Trump to describe those organizations as fake.

“So those who get such information, be informed that those are reports that President Trump calls ‘fake’ reports. What I know is that these are reports which are written by individuals who sleep in the hotels in Juba, and they must write something about South Sudan,” he said.