Wednesday, January 03, 2007

UN peace keepers abuse children in S. Sudan

What do you do when the people you invited into your house start to misbehave? Anyone would say chase them out. But when it comes to the UN ...

The reports that some UN peace keeping soldiers in Juba had been abusing children as young as 12 years in Juba is disturbing. What is wrong with these peace keepers? Are they so over sexed that they go around looking for children?

The issue is not new. There have been accusations in Congo and Sierre Leone of UN peace keepers behaving like that. All these are complicating the UN mission in Sudan.

With such reports coming out, who will blame Sudan for refusing UN peace keepers from coming to Darfur? Peace Keepers who not only try to keep peace but also abuse and rape children. It is not enough to just investigate the issues. It may take years to gather evidence and prosecute the perpetrators of such heinous crimes.

Th UN should take this seriously. It will not be long before the tight is turn against these peace keepers by the locals.

I will say chase them...

UPDATE: . Four UN peace keepers removed

The UN has removed four peace keepers from South Sudan after the abuse.

7 comments:

Mimz said...

Nooooo :(

So much for my optimism for Darfur this year.

This is horrible news, I feel awful for these children.. I mean come on, 12 years of age? They have already been suffering enough.

I posted an article on my blog about this Sudanese woman, Halima, who spoke out about an attack on primary school children in Darfur by a group of Janjaweed. The lady was gang-raped and tortured after that, repeatedly.

UN peace keepers, Janjaweed, I don't care.. they're still children for gods sake.

Sick, sick world that we live in.

Black Kush said...

Mimz, it is sad and disgusting to hear these things happening in the UN. For a body that people have high hopes in, the abuse of children is unforgivable.

President Omar Bashir will be laughing the loudest these days. He has another weapon to poke fun with at the UN. I feel sorry for the secretary general as this makes his task about Darfur difficult.

Sad as it is, the issue is bound to continue unless somethings is done fast. Indeed, it is a sick world...

Anonymous said...

Read that news the other day and was quite disgusted. Glad to hear the UN is at least attempting to do something, albiet it is probably too little too late.

Quick question for you Black Kush - would it be possible to get in email contact with you? I'm looking for Juba contacts that might be able to help me collect some information. If we can communicate via email I can give you more details.

Black Kush said...

Thanks for the msges Paul. That will depend on what type of info you seek. I wn't promise anything as am a traveller. You can use the email on my blog.

Black Kush said...

jubablog@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

This is horrible. I'm glad the four were removed. It's just sad and terrible when the awful acts of some cast bad light on the good the organization is trying to do as a whole. People like that sicken me.

Anonymous said...

Great post, I am almost 100% in agreement with you