S Sudan army court head quits

JUBA: The head of South  Sudan’s military court has resigned,  accusing the army chief  of extra-judicial arrests of citizens  based on their ethnicity,  according to a letter seen by  AFP on Saturday.  Colonel Khalid Ono Loki is  the second top army official to  quit this week after a respected  general resignedwhile accusing  President Salva Kiir and top  members from his majority  Dinka tribe of "ethnic cleansing".  The country’s labour minister  also resigned on Friday, and  declared allegiance to rebel  leader Riek Machar. The exodus  comes amid mounting  alarm over a civil war which  has devastated the world’s  youngest nation over the past  three years.  In a letter addressed to army  chief Paul Malong Awan, Loki  decried "unspecified and unstipulated  arrests and detentions  fluctuating from months  to years without investigation  and scrutiny ... on fabricated  cases against individuals of  non-Dinka ethnicity."  He also accused Awan of  dismissing rulings againstmembers  of his own tribe accused of  murder, rape and theft.  "Mr. Chief, you have often  avoided the current courts,  tried officers on your own,  whilst crafting and forming  alien ones paradoxical to the  existent established courts  which are in conformity with  the law," Loki wrote.  "Your unqualified clique of  friends and relatives who dangerously  arrest and sentence as  you sowish and command have  never attended any law school  to carry such responsibility."  War broke out in oil-rich  South Sudan in 2013, just two  years after it achieved independence,  after Kiir accused his  former deputy Machar of plotting  a coup.  An August 2015 peace deal  was left in tatters when fighting  broke out in Juba in July last  year.  Violence -- initially between  ethnic Dinka supporters of Kiir  and ethnic Nuer supporters of  Machar -- has since spread to  other parts of the country, engulfing  other ethnic groups and  grievances.  The United Nations has  warned of potential genocide  and ethnic cleansing.  A confidential UN report obtained  by AFP this week cites  UN Secretary-General Antonio  Guterres as saying the war had  reached "catastrophic proportions  for civilians".  Rights groups accuse both  soldiers and rebels of horrific  rights abuses including rape  and extra-judicial killings.  The war has left tens of  thousands dead and more than  three million people displaced.  The humanitarian crisis has  been exacerbated by a severe  drought which has put thousands  at risk of famine in the  country. The UN’s humanitarian  office OCHA said some 7.5 million  people in the country were  now in need of humanitarian  assistance.—AFP