UN panel accuses regional South Sudan officials of overseeing gang rapes, beheadings

FILE PHOTO: An aerial view from a from a United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) Mi-8MTV-1 helicopter shows a section of Leer town in Unity State, South Sudan in this photo released November 3, 2022. World Food Programme/Handout via REUTERS

NAIROBI (Reuters) - South Sudan should investigate officials accused of overseeing systematic gang rapes, some of whose victims were girls as young as nine, UN rights experts said on Monday in a statement the government dismissed as a fabrication.

Investigators say sexual abuse has been used as a weapon by all sides in South Sudan's civil conflict, which erupted in 2013 and triggered Africa's biggest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.