The United States Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor announced on Monday that the human rights situation in South Sudan has remained unchanged compared to 2023.
In a 57-page Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the agency said significant human rights issues included credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearance.
“Torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces, opposition forces, armed militias affiliated with the government and the opposition, and ethnically based groups," states the report.
“Harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary detention, serious problems with the independence of the judiciary, political prisoners or detainees, transnational repression against individuals in other countries.”
The agency also cited restrictions on freedom of expression.
“Serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, and censorship, serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association,” it says.
The report criticized the government for not taking credible steps to identify and punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses, despite isolated examples of prosecution for human rights abuses.
It mentioned that nongovernment armed groups, including the forces of peace-agreement signatories and other opposition armed groups alike, perpetrated serious human rights abuses, which, according to the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, included unlawful killings, abduction, rape, and forced recruitment of children and adults into combat and non-combat roles.
It also stressed that widespread oil spills continue to affect the lives of locals.
“Widespread oil spillages and other chemical pollution, exacerbated by sustained, multiyear flooding that damaged oil-producing infrastructure, negatively affected the health of workers and others who lived nearby,” it adds.
Efforts made to reach the government to respond to the allegations were not immediately successful.