December 22nd, 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan government on Friday announced that members of the MSF Holland which reported the recent cases near Bentiu have been banned from leaving the country until an investigation into the rape report is finalized.
The directive by the South Sudan government was announced by the country’s Information Minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, following the weekly meeting of the council of ministers on Friday.
The medical Charity, MSF announced early this month that between 120-150 South Sudan women were detained, raped and assaulted for a period of 10 days by members of South Sudan’s army.
The report sparked international condemnation with calls on South Sudan government to conduct own investigation into the alleged incident.
Last week, South Sudan government sent a team of investigators lets by the Gender Minister Awut Deng to Bentiu to inquire on the matter. On Thursday, the team turned and denied that the incident occurred called the MSF report is “baseless and unfounded.”
In a statement following the ministerial meeting in Juba on Friday, the information minister, Michael Makuei, who said another team has been formed by the president to investigate the incident further announced that MSF Holland staffs are been banned from leaving South Sudan.
“All the employees of MSF Holland who are involved in this should not be allowed to leave the state until the investigation is complete,” he said
“These are directives given to the governor of the state and to the security apparatus here because some of them might want to go on Christmas,” he added.
Makuei revealed that a person named Ruth was the one who filed the report had left the country because here contract expired adding that the government requested the MSF to be in any person who was here when the report was written.
“her contract with MSF is over and that she left. We want everybody to come back, including this Ruth alleged to have written the report,” he said.
