Police recruits abused

Juba (AP)

United Nation (US) investigators say police recruits were beaten to death, sexually assaulted and forced to stand for hours in the blazing sun as part of a training programme funded by international donors, emonstrating the challenges ahead for what will soon be the world's newest nation.

Some of the 6,000 recruits who took part in a yearlong programme to train new officers to promote stability in the war-torn region say they were raped and were beaten with sticks. UN investigators found that at least two trainees died from injuries.

The academy had received more than US$1 million from the UN Development Programme with promises of more aid. Now, international donors have suspended their support to the Rajaf police academy pending further investigation. Plans for the next class of recruits are on hold.

"Our rights as recruits were not respected," one man in his mid-20s told The Associated Press. He detailed how he and his fellow recruits were beaten with sticks, kicked, "made to roll on the ground" and forced to crawl on their hands and knees as punishment.

Despair

The recruit decided to sign up for the police training after living as a refugee in neighbouring Uganda and finding others jobs hard to come by in the desperately poor Southern Sudanese capital city of Juba. Instead of opportunity, he says he found despair.

"It made me lose my hope completely. I had no idea I would enter such a life, otherwise I would not have joined," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Southern Sudan voted over-whelmingly last month to secede from the north. The independence referendum was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended a two-decade war that had left two million people dead.