After facing years of international pressure, South Sudan has announced plans to investigate the death of journalist Christopher Allen, who was killed in 2017 while covering the country’s brutal civil war.
The Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elia Lomuro, announced in a statement issued late on Monday that a committee has been established to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of journalist Christopher Allen.
The United States and Britain, along with media campaign groups and Christopher Allen’s family, have been urging for an investigation into his killing on August 26, 2017, for several years.
The 26-year-old freelance reporter, who held dual American-British nationality, was fatally shot in the head during a skirmish between the South Sudanese army and rebels in the southwestern town of Kawa.
Allen had been embedded with rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army In Opposition (SPLA-IO) to report on the conflict that erupted just two years after the country declared independence.
The 2013-2018 conflict between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his then-deputy Riek Machar claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 people.
Following Allen’s death, the government denied allegations that its troops had intentionally killed him.
“The killing of Christopher Allen was not targeted,” Information Minister Michael Makuei said at the time. “But anybody on that side is usually a target.”
Makuei had previously referred to Allen as a “white rebel” and asserted that he had entered the country unlawfully.
In August, on the sixth anniversary of Allen’s killing, the United States and Britain issued a joint statement urging South Sudan to conduct a “credible investigation.”
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), also known as RSF, has been urging the United States to lead an investigation into his death due to Juba’s “failure to hold anyone accountable.”
“Available information demonstrates that war crimes were committed in the deliberate targeting of Allen and the treatment of his body after his death, including trophy-style photos,” it said in a statement in August.
South Sudan is ranked 118th out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2023 World Press Freedom Index, and the organization reports that at least nine journalists have been killed in the world’s youngest country since 2014.
“Impunity prevails in nearly all cases. Both South Sudanese and foreign journalists who try to provide independent reporting expose themselves to execution, torture, abduction, arbitrary detention, poisoning, and harassment,” RSF says on its website.
