South Sudan troops suffocated 60 inside church building: Amnesty

In a report detailing the atrocity by government soldiers for the first time, the London-based rights watchdog called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.

The killings, which the government has denied, took place in a Catholic church compound in the central town of Leer in October 2015, Amnesty said.

It was first reported last month by the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC), a regional ceasefire body pushing peace efforts.

Amnesty's report, based on 23 eyewitnesses who saw the men and boys forced into the container with their hands tied or saw the bodies later dragged away and dumped, provides more details and attributes blame for the killings.

"Witnesses described hearing the detainees crying and screaming in distress and banging on the walls of the shipping container, which they said had no windows or other form of ventilation," the report said.

Temperatures in the northern battleground state of Unity regularly top 40 degrees Celsius.

"They said that civilian and military officials had direct knowledge that the detainees were in distress and dying but did nothing to help them," the report said.

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