Eyewitnesses who survived the fall of Bentiu say they narrowly escaped death from rebel forces who deliberately and systematically killed hundreds of people after capturing the city last week.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj after undergoing a successful medical operation, trader Ahmed Adam Ahmed explained how he survived.

He said that rebel soldiers gunned down crowds of civilians and then went looking for survivors among the fallen. He himself was hit with a gun stock and nearly suffocated from blood clotting.

“I’m sick from suffocation resulting from being hit by a gun stock. They came and made inspection (among the dead) and hit you with the gun stock – if you moved they shot you to death and if you did not then he thinks that you are dead,” remembered Ahmed.

He explained that the shooters knew that they were killing civilians who were merely traders. They opened fire on the traders with the intent to kill them.

“These were traders who did not have anywhere to live but the mosque,” he said, noting that they were awakened in the early morning to the sound of gunfire as rebels overran the city.

“We started to go to UNMISS but they (the rebels) refused and said ‘Nobody goes to UNMISS’. After that they opened fire randomly and there was no warning until they killed a six year old girl,” he narrated.

“A young girl aged six was crying over her dead mother saying, ‘Mother, mother’ and they shot her dead with three bullets,” Ahmed added.

“Those who were in the mosque were about 316 to 317 and those who died were 255 and the rest suffered different wounds. There are people shot in the chest, abdomen – I mean, different wounds but there were about twenty or so serious ones.”

He said he expected some of the wounded to die because some of them bled 17 to 18 hours before receiving treatment.

Asked why the rebels targeted the foreign traders, Ahmed said did not understand why because the traders had no tribal or national loyalties but were only businessmen.

Informed of the rebels’ claim of the presence of the Sudan Revolutionary Front in Bentiu, Ahmed bitterly denounced it saying that the rebels were liars: “They are liars, and I confirm to you that there was not even one person from the Sudan Revolutionary Front around.”

“Everybody around were traders who were about 520 or so,” he added.

Haroun Khamis, a Somali trader who also escaped from Bentiu, confirmed that hundreds were massacred. “Truly by God I cannot confirm the number but the deaths are about 400 or 500, very many,” he said.

Another survivor Adam Ali also narrated that they fled from Bentiu passing Mayom to Aniet in the contested region of Abyei and confirmed hundreds were murdered.

“We went out from Bentiu by Nialdiu road to Wangkai footing and we crossed the river, via Mayom where the government managed to rescue us and provided cars to take us to Aniet where we are now,” he said.

One car overturned from Mayom to Abiemnhom with about 60 to 80 people, injuring about 40 people who were taken to Aniet hospital for treatment.

The killings in Bentiu took place when troops loyal to former vice president Riek Machar overran the city, under the command of the defected general James Koang. During the takeover of the city they took over the FM radio station and broadcast hate messages. 

South Sudan’s government has strongly condemned the killing of civilians by the rebels in Bentiu.

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Micheal Makuei Lueth told the press this morning at the ministry premises that almost 400 people were killed in cool blood, the majority being Sudanese traders.

Another official in Unity State put the number of dead far higher, telling Radio Tamazuj the figure was in the thousands, though this has not yet been confirmed. 

Photo: A scene of Bentiu after its recapture by the government, 12 January 2014 (AP/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin) 

Related coverage:

UN confirms massacres in South Sudan, says FM being used for hate messages (21 Apr.)

Hundreds feared dead in Bentiu massacres (17 Apr.)