Introduction
April 2016 marks one year since the start of the southern Unity offensive. Over a period of approximately seven months in 2015, thousands of people were killed, raped, abducted, and rendered homeless during a series of brutal attacks across southern and central Unity State. The Protection Cluster recently conducted a follow up assessment in Leer County, and with access now improved, the scale of the atrocities that have taken place is becoming increasingly apparent. This note provides an overview of the findings of the protection assessment conducted in early April 2016, and offers an update on the current protection environment in Leer County.
Key Protection Concerns: April 2015 – today
In 2015, the Protection Cluster released three situation updates describing the widespread violence and targeting of civilians in southern and central Unity State. Based on reports from sources on the ground, human rights investigations, and media reports, the Protection Cluster estimated that between April and October 2015, at least 1,250 individuals were killed in Leer, Mayendit, and Koch Counties. The Protection Cluster was concerned that estimates of such deaths were low, and the recent assessment indicates that the number in Leer County is indeed likely to be much higher. In interviews with 84 people, 90 percent reported that at least one relative was killed during the violence. In fact, many interviewees reported having lost not one, but multiple relatives: of those surveyed, an average of six people were killed per family.
Interviewees also reported a worrying gender pattern to the violence: the persons killed were overwhelmingly male. While attackers would reportedly rape or abduct women, they would often kill men on the spot. One woman reported that during the violence in 2015, 35 men in her family had been killed, and that she now has only one surviving male relative. The aftermath of this violence is still visible in Leer Town and surrounding payams, and interviewees reported that skeletons remain strewn in fields nearby main roads.