toll in the conflict will grow. UN officials said 14 bodies
were found in a single grave in Bentiu, capital of Unity
State, and 20 more on a riverbank nearby. Earlier in the day
the UN in Geneva had said that 75 bodies had been found
but this was later revised to 34, with 75 feared missing and
presumed dead.
A UN spokeswoman said that the victims appeared to be
soldiers from the Sudan Peoples' Liberation army, the
national military. They were reportedly ethnic Dinka, the
tribe of President Kiir. South Sudan's minister of information, Michael Makuei Lueth, said Bentiu was under the control of rebels loyal to the country's former vice president, Riek Machar, who is Nuer.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, called on both sides to protect civilians and warned that
political and military leaders could be held to account for
crimes. "Mass extrajudicial killings, the targeting of
individuals on the basis of their ethnicity and arbitrary
detentions have been documented in recent days," Pillay
said in a statement.
"We have discovered a mass grave in Bentiu, in Unity
State, and there are reportedly at least two other mass
graves in Juba."
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