Expand / Collapse search
Watch TV
Menu

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

Europe

British official: South Sudan violence is tribal genocide

Associated Press
Published | Updated
  • 0fc3f15c-
    Image 1 of 3

    In this photo taken Tuesday, April 11, 2017, Women wait to receive food by ICRC at a site in Leer County region of South Sudan. Two months after a famine was declared in two counties amid its civil war, hunger has become more widespread than expected, aid workers say, region on the brink of starvation and people at risk of dying without sustained food assistance. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

  • fdbb85c0-
    Image 2 of 3

    In this photo taken Tuesday, April 11, 2017, Women wait to receive food by ICRC at a site in Leer County region of South Sudan. Two months after a famine was declared in two counties amid its civil war, hunger has become more widespread than expected, aid workers say, region on the brink of starvation and people at risk of dying without sustained food assistance. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

  • 6292b8b0-
    Image 3 of 3

    In this photo taken Tuesday, April 11, 2017, Women wait to receive food by ICRC at a site in Leer County region of South Sudan. Two months after a famine was declared in two counties amid its civil war, hunger has become more widespread than expected, aid workers say, region on the brink of starvation and people at risk of dying without sustained food assistance. (AP Photo) (The Associated Press)

ENTEBBE, Uganda – A senior British official says she believes the violence in South Sudan is now genocide that is being perpetrated along tribal lines.

Priti Patel, the U.K. secretary of state for international development, said in an interview late Wednesday that there are "massacres taking place, people's throats being slit."

She said there is a "scorched earth policy," with villages being burned down, women being raped, and food being used as a weapon of war.

She described the situation in South Sudan as "absolutely abhorrent and inhumane."

Patel visited South Sudan this week.

A U.N. report released last month said South Sudan is experiencing ethnic cleansing by mostly government forces. That report described the country as teetering on the edge of genocide.

South Sudan fell into civil war in December 2013.