Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the United Nations

In S Sudan ICP Reported 150 Soldiers Killed, Now Gov Families Fleeing

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, July 10 -- In the UN's continued withholding of news and answers about South Sudan, the reports of the UN's own knowledge of abuses are now being withheld from its own impacted national staff. So Inner City Press has published below multiple leaked documents from inside UNMISS and from non-governmental organizations - and compares them to contradictory official statements by the UN.

The UN has responded by evicting Inner City Press from its long-time shared office in the UN on April 16, video here and here (Periscope). Still, early on July 9, exclusively from inside UNMISS, Inner City Press published a UN memo on the most recent violence's impact on the UN, see below, well before the UN Security Council issued a statement, here. Here's amore from within the UN: "“Movement around Juba is being permitted at this time but some checkpoints are quite aggressive and have assaulted (slapped) expat drivers. Checkpoints have even been reported on back routes.

·       A guard company mobile patrol reports that the checkpoints are behaving reasonably but they were warned to be off the streets by 16:00.

·       Soldiers on Airport Road have moved back to base, probably because they have been on duty all night. They have not been replaced, as far as I have been told.

·       Additional checkpoints have been positioned near New Rock Shield though the soldiers outside Astek are no longer in place.

·       A T-72 and 4 artillery pieces are reportedly deployed at the Juba bridge and at the time of writing the Mi24s are manoeuvring at the airport. Incoming commercial flights are being reported as delayed at their respective points of departure

·       Some reports suggesting senior Government officials are moving their families out of Juba, or are trying to do so. A large Government convoy has been seen at the airport"

The memo said 150 soldiers had been killed; UNMISS said it could not or would not confirm it. AFP hours later reported the number, and the US and UNICEF issued statements. Would UNICEF disclose the number of civilians killed, as the UN refused to do in Wau?

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.