Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his South Sudanese counterpart on the (a) kidnapping and subsequent death of opposition member Aggrey Idri and human rights lawyer Doug Samuel Luak and (b) need to bring the perpetrators of those crimes to justice.

The British Government is deeply disturbed by the UN Panel of Expert's findings that Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Idri were abducted from Kenya and executed in South Sudan by the South Sudanese national security service in 2017. We call on the South Sudanese Government to respond to these findings, and ensure that its defence and security forces are subject to the rule of law, to prevent future disappearances.

The disappearance of these individuals and concerns for their safety have been raised by the British Ambassador, and by the UK Special Envoy for South Sudan with senior members of the South Sudanese Government on a number of occasions. The case has also been raised in Nairobi with the Kenyan authorities. This is part of a troubling pattern of harassment and intimidation of civic actors by South Sudanese authorities. The British Government regularly calls for the release of all political prisoners in accordance with the 12 September peace agreement. We also led efforts to renew the mandate of the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan in March, and support the renewal of the Panel of Experts mandate due at the end of May. The work of these UN bodies is critical to exposing the perpetrators of human rights violations in South Sudan. ​