Legacies of Enforced Disappearances in South Sudan – Briefing Paper

In 2007, a group of widows whose husbands were disappeared in Juba during the government crackdown of 1992 organized a public gathering in which they demanded to know what has happened to their loved ones. In response to their demands, the Governor of Central Equatoria State promised to ask the government to inform on the fate of those missing and issue death certificates. He also declared that the government would build a monument in memory of the victims of 1992. The widows interviewed for this study have yet to receive any information about the fate of their husbands.

This briefing paper examines enforced disappearances that occurred in South Sudan that occurred during the 22-year war (1983-2005), particularly during the 1990s. It examines the legacy of enforced disappearances—or the arrest, detention, or abduction of people by state actors followed by a refusal to acknowledge the act or conceal the whereabouts or fate of the disappeared person. 

The enforced disappearances that occurred in Juba in the 1990s are now decades old, but they continue to have impacts today. 
Efforts to address past human rights violations in the context of the peace process provide a promising starting point, but until the Government creates a conducive environment for public discussion about the legacies of violence in the country and South Sudanese take ownership over efforts to address those legacies, South Sudan will remain a victim of its tortured past.