(UN News Centre) – Sexual violence has become a key feature of the continuing conflict in South Sudan, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, has declared, while affirming that the widespread use of rape could ultimately be stopped through greater political and legal efforts by the Government and civil society. In a press conference today at UN Headquarters following her first mission to South Sudan to assess the situation of sexual violence in conflict in the country, Ms. Bangura explained that in her 30 years of experience she had never seen anything like what she witnessed in the northern town of Bentiu, where hundreds of civilians were massacred in April of this year and many more were raped.
