Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether she has made an estimate of the number of executions that occurred in (a) Somalia and (b) South Sudan in 2021; and what discussions she has had with her counterparts in those countries on the rising numbers of executions.

Amnesty International published credible figures in May 2022 that suggest at least 21 executions were carried out in Somalia and 9 in South Sudan during 2021. Our longstanding policy is to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, as a matter of principle. Somalia and South Sudan are Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) human rights priority countries and we have repeatedly made this position clear to the governments of both countries. In October 2021, we secured a resolution, supported by Somalia, at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), promoting greater protection of human rights. On South Sudan, we helped ensure continued monitoring of the human rights situation through the renewal in March of the mandate for the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. We also made clear our ongoing concerns at the human rights situation, and proposed actions for both countries, at their respective Universal Periodic Reviews at the HRC this year.