Nearly 40 cases of rape have been registered in four counties of Yei River State, according to a women’s group leader.

Josephine Modong runs Women on the Move, a local NGO helping vulnerable women in Kajo-keji.

She told a press conference that the 39 cases were reported in Kangapo, Nyepo, Liwolo, and Kajo-keji counties.

However, she could not reveal information about the perpetrators.

Ms Modong says some of the victims are widows, whom she said lost their husbands after the July 2016 incident in Juba.

“This has affected the women seriously, and some of the women are widows,” she lamented.

The women leader did not specify when exactly the rape incidents occurred, but said she established the data during a visit to Kajo-keji Civil Hospital recently.

Ms Modong said the situation, together with the economic hardship, has forced some women flee their homes to the neighboring country, Uganda.

She added: “So I’m appealing to the NGOs and to our government to respond to these situations of rape.”

Meanwhile, the commissioner of Nyepo County, Julius Lokonga, who spoke to Eye Radio on the matter today said they were yet to verify the report.

In December 2016, a U.N. team of human rights investigators said rape in South Sudan in general was “one of the tools being used in the violence, adding that sexual violence in the country “has reached epic proportions.”

Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch have also raised such cases, saying soldiers raped women in its August 2016 report.