{"id":23831,"date":"2016-03-11T00:48:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T00:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-sudan-army-suffocated-60-in-container\/"},"modified":"2016-03-11T00:48:14","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T00:48:14","slug":"south-sudan-army-suffocated-60-in-container","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-sudan-army-suffocated-60-in-container\/","title":{"rendered":"South Sudan army &#8216;suffocated 60 in container&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A rights group says it has evidence that South Sudan government forces deliberately suffocated more than 60 men and boys in a shipping container.}<\/p>\n<p>They then dumped the bodies in a field in Leer Town, Unity State, Amnesty International said.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers said they had found the remains of skeletons from the killings, which are are said to have taken place last October.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Dozens of people suffered a slow and agonising death at the hands of government forces that should have been protecting them. These unlawful killings must be investigated,&#8221; said Lama Fakih from Amnesty.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty researchers interviewed more than 42 witnesses, including 23 people who said they saw the men and boys being forced into a shipping container and later saw their bodies either being removed or at a mass burial site.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses described hearing the detainees screaming and banging on the walls of the shipping container, which they said had no windows or other form of ventilation.<\/p>\n<p>One said she saw a commander order soldiers to open the container and take out four bodies before closing it again on the remaining detainees.<\/p>\n<p>Relatives of the victims told Amnesty that the victims were cattle keepers, traders and students, not fighters.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty has called for the African Union (AU) to set up a Hybrid Court for South Sudan agreed under a peace agreement signed last August.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-10889 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88691935_88691934.jpg\" alt=\"South Sudan&#039;s army has been accused of war crimes\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A rights group says it has evidence that South Sudan government forces deliberately suffocated more than 60 men and boys in a shipping container.} They then dumped the bodies in a field in Leer Town, Unity State, Amnesty International said. Researchers said they had found the remains of skeletons from the killings, which are are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23831"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23831"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}