The following is based on a communication written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and other UN experts to the Government of South Sudan on 14 March 2023. The communication remained confidential for 60 days before being made public, giving the Government time to reply. Regrettably, the Government did not reply within this time frame. If a reply is received it will be posted on the UN Special Procedures communications database.
Since the communication was sent, we have learnt that Morris Mabior Awikjok is currently detained in Juba, South Sudan. His wife has not been allowed to visit him, but other family members were. The human rights defender has reportedly lost some weight and is suffering from kidney issues.
This is a shorter version of the original communication.
BACKGROUND
Topics: alleged abduction and subsequent enforced disappearance from Nairobi, Kenya, of human rights defender Morris Mabior Awikjok, his alleged enforced deportation to South Sudan, his detention and torture, and the lack of information provided to his family members in Nairobi, Kenya.
Mr. Morris Mabior Awikjok is a human rights defender and the head of Youth Alliance Network, a civil society organisation registered in South Sudan, a former teacher and former secretary general of the Warrap Worker Union in South Sudan. As a human rights defender, he has documented violations by certain members and leaders of the National Security Services (NSS) for allegedly inciting inter-communal conflict in Jonglei State and abuses across the country.
ALLEGATIONS
On the evening of 4 February 2023, Mr. Awikjok was reportedly attacked in his home in Nairobi, Kenya by five armed men and a woman wearing a Kenyan police officer uniform, and a South Sudanese man in plain clothes. Without producing any arrest warrant, they pushed Mr. Awikjok’s wife, seized mobile phones, laptops and documents, including his wife’s travel documents. Finally, they took Mr. Awikjok away without disclosing information about his destination.
On 6 February 2023, a South Sudanese newspaper, The Dawn, reported that Mr. Awikjok had been “extradited” to Juba, to face charges.
Between 4 and 13 February 2023, the family was unaware of the fate and whereabouts of Mr. Awikjok.
On 13 February 2023, Mr. Awikjok’s family members in Kenya received a phone call allegedly from a security source in South Sudan telling them that Mr. Awikjok was held in the Blue House national security detention centre where he had been badly tortured.
On 15 February 2023, the same source, who is also a member of Mr. Awikjok’s local community in South Sudan, called to say that Mr. Awikjok had been moved from the detention centre and had been possibly taken to Luri Prison in Juba County in South Sudan, and that he allegedly was so badly tortured that no one was allowed to see him.
On 21 February 2023, Mr. Awikjok’s family received a call from a reliable source informing them that he had been returned to the National Security detention facility also known as the “Blue House”, was recovering from injuries sustained under torture, and was being investigated ahead of presenting him to court.
To date, his family has not received any official information as to his whereabouts, or his health condition, and he has had no access to legal assistance. Even after his family was indirectly informed about his whereabouts, they have not been informed of charges against Mr. Awikjok and have been unable to find a lawyer willing to take on his case as he had named powerful NSS leaders in his denunciation of their alleged human rights violations.
Mr. Awikjok has been living in Nairobi, Kenya, since April 2021, where he sought asylum as a result of death threats that he received in South Sudan due to his work on exposing human rights abuses. He remained in hiding during 2021 and in 2022 he resumed work on denouncing human rights violations in South Sudan and addressing alleged violations by NSS leaders, mostly on social media.
CONCERNS
In the communication, we express our utmost concern at the continuous solitary confinement in an unknown location of Mr. Awikjok, his abduction and subsequent enforced disappearance and deportation to South Sudan, and his alleged torture and ill-treatment. We are also concerned that his fate, his whereabouts or any charges pressed against him have not been officially disclosed to his family, and that he has not had access to legal counsel.
