A South Sudanese military court on Thursday sentenced 10 soldiers to prison for raping foreign aid workers and killing a journalist, Reuters reported. The crimes were committed during an attack, considered to be the worst assault on foreign aid workers during the country’s civil war, on a hotel in Juba in 2016.
The court also ordered the government to pay a compensation of $4,000 (approximately Rs 2.86 lakh) to each of the rape victims. “The military court found that the accused here are guilty for their direct responsibility in committing crimes,” said Brigadier General Neath Almaz Juma, the head of the military court. The convicts were sentenced to prison terms between seven years and life imprisonment.
One accused soldier was acquitted.
The attack on Terrain hotel occurred on July 11, 2016, soon after President Salva Kiir’s troops won a three-day battle against opposition forces loyal to ex-Vice President Riek Machar. “Five women working with humanitarian organizations were then raped. [South Sudanese journalist] John Gatluak was shot,” Mike Woodward, the hotel’s manager told the court.
The military court directed the government to give the journalist’s family 51 heads of cattle and $2.2 million (approximately Rs 15.8 crore) in compensation.
United Nations peacekeepers were accused of ignoring pleas for help during the attack. Kenyan Lieutenant General Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki, the military of head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, was fired over the incident.
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