Morris Mabior Awikjok
Morris Mabior Awikjok is a human rights defender and the head of the civil society organisation Youth Alliance Network. Morris Mabior Awikjok was a teacher and former Secretary General of the Warrap Worker Union in South Sudan. The human rights defender is known for his documentation of human rights abuses committed by the National Security Service.
HRDs in South Sudan face a number of challenges, most of which appear to be exacerbated by the fact that this is a new nation undergoing a difficult political transition and periodic bouts of instability. The country's early post-independence gains were depleted by a recent civil war that flared up in December 2013 as a result of an apparent power struggle between President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Riek Machar. The crisis quickly degenerated into an ethnic conflict pitting members of the majority ethnic groups of Dinka (the group president Salva Kiir originate from) against the Nuer (the group vice-president Riek Machar originate from). During this period of insecurity that affected different regions of the country, including Juba, the capital, many human rights defenders faced death threats and were forced to go into hiding or flee the country.
