#rumbek

[southsud]

@arnedoornebal via Twitter

Young men taking part in an initiation ritual/war play

Rumbek, South Sudan   

[jobsinkenyanow-blog]

Driver - Rumbek

Driver – Rumbek

Driver

Location :

Rumbek, SOUTH SUDAN

Application Deadline : 04-Jun-15 Type of Contract : FTA Local Post Level : GS-2 Languages Required : Arabic   English   Duration of Initial Contract : 12 Months Refer a Friend  Apply Now Background

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Head of Sub-Office, the Driver provides reliable and safe driving…

View On WordPress

[jobsinkenyanow-blog]

South Sudan: WASH Specialist (NO-C) Bor & Rumbek

South Sudan: WASH Specialist (NO-C) Bor & Rumbek

Follow link to apply

View On WordPress

[southsud]

Rumbek, Freedom Square

Photo credit: Kataweb.it

[life-globe-blog]

Rumbek, South Sudan

Inmates play football in the courtyard of the prison facility (Guardian)

[southsud]

Rumbek, South Sudan 1926

[jeromestarkey]

Death row prisoners in Rumbek, in South Sudan, shackled together to stop them escaping.  At least eight people have been executed, by hanging, since independence last year, despite widespread concerns over serious flaws in the justice system.

[jeromestarkey]

The Times Jerome Starkey, in Juba

On Christmas Eve last year, a 27-year-old hospital porter from Central Equatoria drank himself into oblivion and woke up the next day in a police cell, accused of a double murder.

Martin Woro had no recollection of the previous night, and could not afford a lawyer. Today he is one of 104 people on death row in South Sudan’s largest prison, in Juba. “I saw the judge four times,” he said. “Each time for around five minutes. On April 24 he sentenced me to death.”

The death sentence in South Sudan is carried out by hanging. The relatives of one of his victims demanded compensation, in the form of cash or cows, but the second man’s family called for Woro to face the gallows.

In many ways his case embodies the struggle for the soul of Africa’s newest nation as South Sudan’s leaders decide whether to retain the death penalty, or seek another path as they draft a new constitution.

“The customary way of dealing with murder was blood compensation: You would pay in cows,” said Telar Deng, the presidential adviser on legal affairs. “We inherited the death penalty from the white people.”

Britain, which has pledged £94 million a year to South Sudan until 2015, has a longstanding opposition to capital punishment, although as the colonial power it helped to introduce it.

France, the European Union and the Comboni Catholic Missionaries have all called for South Sudan to impose a moratorium on executions, citing serious flaws in the justice system and ideological opposition.

“This is a struggle not only for the death penalty, but for justice more widely,” said Father Daniele Moschetti, the head of the Comboni mission. He said South Sudan’s Government, still heavy with ex-generals, was at risk of recreating the abuses of Khartoum they had fought against for more than three decades.

In a dozen interviews with death row inmates in Juba and Rumbek prisons, including two women convicted of murder, none said that they had access to lawyers. Kenneth Kaunda, a former soldier sentenced to death for murder, said the first thing the judge told him was that he was guilty. “I said, ‘Can you show me evidence?’ But he refused,” said Kaunda.

Stella Juwa Felix, a mother of six, was accused of shooting her husband and now lives in leg-irons in Juba’s women’s prison which, in the absence of any psychiatric hospitals, also houses 11 severely mentally ill women. She had seven trips to court. Each lasted about ten minutes. She said that she never had a lawyer.

Yet the lack of legal aid is no reason to stop executions, according to Justice Geri Raymondo Legge, the President of Lake State’s Appeal Court. During a previous appointment in Wao, he said that he oversaw 17 executions in 14 months.

“In the absence of a lawyer I am the advocate of the accused,” he said. “I am advocate for the plaintiff, the defendant and judge.” South Sudan needed the death penalty because its people were inclined to violence, he added. “If you remove the death penalty your life is in danger. Our people are aggressive. The purpose of this is a deterrent to stop them killing.” (Read more...)