The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced the shocking news in a report , adding that a UN investigation had already identified three commanders who purportedly bore “the greatest responsibility” for the horrific acts.
It also said that the violence had occurred in the northern state of Unity between April 16 and May 24, which could amount to war crimes. The office elaborated that the elderly and disabled civilians had been burned alive in the attacks on 40 villages, which appeared to be aimed at driving out opposition fighters.
Elsewhere in the report, the UN rights agency said that the opposition forces, for their part, had conducted armed attacks that caused civilian casualties.
Separately, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said that on May 17 it began deploying 150 peacekeepers to protect civilians from violent clashes between the warring sides in the flashpoint state, which hosts abandoned oil fields.
There was no immediate reaction to the report from the Juba government.
South Sudan, the youngest country in Africa, has been gripped by a bloody civil war since December 2013, when incumbent President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of plotting a coup.
The two sides have been involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the impoverished country along the ethnic lines. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict.
Frequent attacks on humanitarian convoys and personnel have been reported in South Sudan's conflict and both warring sides have been blamed.
