The Embassy of the United States of America In Juba on Monday repeated its demand for a credible inquiry into the death of Christopher Allen, a freelance journalist who was a dual U.S. and United Kingdom citizen.
The reporter was shot dead while covering a clash in Central Equatoria State’s Kaya Town on the South Sudan-Uganda border on 16 August 2017 after having been embedded with the then-rebel SPLA-IO forces for three weeks.
“On August 26, 2017, U.S. citizen Christopher Allen was killed in South Sudan, while working as a journalist during the civil war,” a brief statement extended to Radio Tamazuj reads. “We renew our call on the transitional government of South Sudan to conduct a credible investigation into Mr. Allen’s death and the disrespectful treatment of his remains.”
In 2024, the U.S. Embassy said the findings announced on 21 March 2024 by a government committee formed to investigate the scribe’s death did not comprehensively address all the factors that led to Allen’s death or the disrespectful treatment of his remains.
In October 2023, the government, after years of continual international pressure from the U.S., UK, and journalistic and human rights bodies, constituted a committee to investigate Allen’s killing.
In March 2024, David Charles Ali Bilal, the head of the investigation committee, addressed a press conference and said the attack in which the journalist was killed occurred at 5:30 a.m. (030 GMT), and it was difficult to determine “who is black and who is white.”
“Christopher Allen was unintentionally killed as a result of crossfire,” he said, reading from the report.
Ali re-echoed a statement Information Minister Michael Makuei made shortly after Allen’s death that the journalist “entered South Sudan illegally.”
“He was not wearing any protective or press identification clothes,” he added at the time.
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