b. Disappearance

Security and opposition forces, armed militias affiliated with the government or the opposition, and ethnically based groups abducted an unknown number of persons, including women and children (see section 1.g.).

In February, Bor Dinka youth militias abducted two women and five children in one raid. In late April they were released by Bor Dinka community leaders to improve relations between the Murle and Dinka communities. The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan issued a report in February 2019 that alleged a continuing practice of unlawful or arbitrary detention followed by extrajudicial killings in secret, but the report did not publish details on specific cases.

The local nongovernmental organization (NGO) Remembering the Ones We Lost documented the names of 280 persons missing since the conflict began in 2013, many of whom were abducted or detained by security forces. In 2019 the International Committee of the Red Cross reported that 4,000 persons were missing and their whereabouts unknown since the conflict began.

The government did not comply with measures to ensure accountability for disappearances.