South Sudanese civilians living in a displacement camp fear U.N. peacekeepers can’t protect them from a massacre

South Sudanese civilians living in a displacement camp fear U.N. peacekeepers cannot protect them from a massacre by the warring armed groups, the Washington Post reported.

The United Nations operates 16 peacekeeping missions around the world, many of which exist primarily to protect vulnerable civilians. That mandate was reinforced after the genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia in the mid-1990s occurred as outmanned U.N. peacekeeping forces­ stood by.

But 20 years later, the United Nations is once again facing sharp criticism for failing to protect civilians, this time in South Sudan, where 160,000 people are living in its camps, often surrounded by armed men from rival tribes.

In February, fighters carrying AK-47s and grenade launchers broke into the Malakal camp. As many as 50 people were fatally shot, burned alive in their tents or crushed by panicking crowds while U.N. peacekeepers fled their posts. Even the United Nations acknowledged its troops’ failure.

For civilians in the camp, it was like trying to escape from a prison set aflame, the barbed-wire fences penning in wailing mothers and children with swarms of gunmen.

Source : MENA