December 6th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudanese communities in Canada has been invite to attend an event on December 15th marking five years since the Juba Massacre which killed tens of thousands of the Nuer ethnic group in the capital Juba.
In December 2013, violence erupted at Nyakuron Cultural Centre in the nation’s capital Juba during a national convention for the ruling SPLM party later on leading to clashes in the Presidential Guards.
A militia group known as Mathiang Anyor, according to many human rights groups, carried out a ‘state policy’ to ethnically clean Juba of its Nuer population. The killings sparked protest and mutinies among the army igniting what later became the Africa’s most brutal conflict.
The war has since been fought along ethnic lines with Dinka members of the army supporting President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and the Nuer members supporting former vice president Dr. Riek Machar Teny, an ethnic Nuer.
Since then, South Sudanese have been commemorating the day every December 15th each year to remember the Juba killings which targeted the Nuer ethnic group.
In an invitation message extended to the Nyamilepedia on Wednesday, the Nuer Community Chairman in Canada, Simon Taidor Mach, invited all South Sudanese to attend the event on December 15.
“We cordially invite you to attend our South Sudan National Genocide Commemoration event in Hamilton, ON on Saturday, December 15, 2018. The event will be held at the Pilgrim Lutheran church located at 1054 Upper Sherman Road,” he said in a statement to the Nyamilepedia.
“This gathering will be focused on our love, concern, loss, and memories of those who lost limbs, health, human dignity and their lives – as well as on the survivors who live closest to the threat of carnage and further terror,” he added.
