UN and South Sudan officials failed to prevent village massacre, Amnesty says

United Nations peacekeepers and authorities in South Sudan failed to take effective action despite advance warnings before an attack on a village in which more than 200 people were killed, human rights group Amnesty International has said in a new report.

In the report, published on Thursday, Amnesty said the UN mission, UNMISS, knew an attack on a village in Abiemnom, a remote area near the Sudan border, was likely, but did not reinforce its roughly three dozen peacekeepers there until after the March 1 assault.

Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty's director for East and Southern Africa, said: 'Both the government and UNMISS had sufficient information and time to take more effective preventive action. Their failure to take stronger action cost lives.'

According to the report, between 1,000 and 1,500 armed men from neighbouring Mayom County shot residents, burned homes and looted part of the hospital. Authorities put the death toll at more than 200, including 130 town residents, 76 security personnel and seven foreign nationals.

Satellite images showed more than 230 structures were burned. Amnesty said most victims were buried in two mass graves. The group said the attack may have been triggered by tensions over earlier killings of several young men from Mayom County.

UNMISS spokesperson Priyanka Chowdhury said the mission did its best with limited resources and protected and treated about 2,500 people sheltering at a protected area it set up in anticipation of the attack. Facing budget cuts, it had 'concentrated its available capacity on immediate protection of civilians seeking refuge within our base', she said.

Priyanka Chowdhury added that the mission had repeatedly asked the national army to send more forces after the early warnings, and had known tensions were high since mid-February. UNMISS sent 40 more police after the attack.

Amnesty, however, questioned why they were not deployed sooner, particularly after a similar deadly attack in April 2025.

The UN Security Council renewed UNMISS's mandate in April, but cut its authorised troop ceiling from 17,000 to 12,000. Protecting civilians is a core task of the mission.

The findings come as South Sudan heads towards elections next month that many fear could unravel a fragile peace. The country is due to hold elections on December 22.