Hundreds of Civilians Massacred In South Sudan

Bentiu, South Sudan

Horrific massacre: Rebels have massacred hundreds of civilians in the South Sudanese city of Bentiu in the worst atrocity of the young country’s civil war. Bodies, including those of children and old people, were piled in heaps in a mosque, a church, and other buildings all over town. The ethnic Nuer rebels killed all non-Nuer they found, egged on by rebel controlled radio. “Use of hate speech via a public radio station to incite violence is a game-changer,” said Toby Lanzer, the U.N.’s top official in South Sudan. The fighting broke out in December after a political struggle between President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and former Vice President Riek Machar, a Nuer, and has now broadened into an ethnic civil war.