A South Sudanese academic is urging the government and the public to focus on atrocity prevention by taking measures.

Dr. Jafaar Juma, who heads the Statistics Department at the University of Juba, said the government should set up early warning systems so it can respond to conflicts arising.

“We have about eight risk factors and these risk factors should be well studied and well discussed so that we don’t go into crisis or even genocide in the future,” Dr. Jafaar told Eye Radio’s The Dawn show.

“We should always give attention to triggering factors like elections and associated activities because this election is also a triggering factor for this type of things and things like deployment of military.

“If they [soldiers] are not well deployed, if they are from the same ethnic tribe and you take them in other areas, this deployment is also a problem. I think we should open a peace forum on these.”

Dr. Jafaar said the government should urgently set up a South Sudan Genocide and War Crimes Prevention Commission to enable the country to prevent and address mass atrocities.