Deng Dau, the Deputy Minister of Foreign and International Cooperation - Courtesy

The government has said it is yet to receive a UN Human Right Commission report that implicated 142 individuals over gross human rights abuses in South Sudan.

In a report issued on Friday, the UN experts listed 142 people to be investigated over human rights violations in the country.

The Commission said the alleged crimes by the individuals it did not disclose their names included, massacres, torture, abductions, detention, looting, burning of villages and forced displacement as well as rape and sexual violence.

The sixth report of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan was presented by Chairperson Yasmin Sooka and two of her colleagues Andrew Clapham and Barney Afako.

The report documented the violent conflict which took place in areas of Tambura, Warrap, Jonglei, the Greater Pibor and Bentiu in Unity state.

Other violence is at the national level particularly the counter-insurgency in Central Equatoria it said continues to rage on with the National Salvation Front and the government of South Sudan playing a central role.

Yasmin Sooka said the crimes the commission has been investigating reflected the intense competition for power and territory by political elites.

The commission didn’t reveal the identities of the individuals to be investigated.

But Ms. Sooka had previously said people from the principal parties in the unity government have been implicated.

In response to the human rights report, the government said it has not yet received the official report.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign and International Cooperation said such a report is meant to damage the image of South Sudan.

According to him, the human rights situation in South Sudan has improved in the recent period.

“Such report would be communicated officially by the Ministry of Justice, Justice Madol Arol who has been charged with this file, because the human right rapporteur has consistently wanted to keep South Sudan under item four even without justification of doing that,” Deputy Minister Deng Dau said.

“South Sudan has been doing everything possible to improve the performance of human rights across South Sudan beginning from the arbitrary arrest and also improving the life in states and the counties.

“The human rights commission has been persistently wanting to keep South Sudan on the negative spot which we in South Sudan are very concerned and very alarmed on such as keeping South Sudan under this kind of reporting.”