Has General Akol Koor Succumbed to COVID-Related Complications as claimed?

A Facebook post from an account named Philip Deng Kuol, who is a military officer from South Sudan, claims that General Akol Koor Kuc, the Director-General of South Sudan’s Internal Security Services, allegedly succumbed to COVID-19 related complications.

The post further claims that General Koor was supposedly airlifted to Nairobi for medical attention before his purported demise.

Background

In 2019, on request from General Koor, President Salva Kiir formed a tribunal against crimes committed by members of the National Security Service (NSS). However, at the time of publication of this report, information from this tribunal had not been made public. The Human Rights Watch published a report documenting some of these violations.

With the outbreak of the 2013 civil war in South Sudan, the NSS engaged in an extensive crack-down on any person considered to be anti-government. Based on interviews with former detainees and victims, these violations ranged from torture, physical and telephonic surveillance, to extrajudicial killings.

 Verification

A Google advanced search revealed that General Koor is part of a new board of directors for the National Communication Authority (NCA) and the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) sworn in on July 15. (See list of names below).

The Office of the President South Sudan also shared this list on July 15. In a collection of photos taken during the swearing-in ceremony was General Koor.

The Ministry of ICT South Sudan similarly shared images from this ceremony, where General Akol is seen in two of these photos taking an oath alongside other Board of Directors. 

Another post shared on Facebook lists the names of the Board of Directors newly sworn in. From this post, Akol Koor can be spotted in three different photos.

Verdict

From these results, the latest public presence of Gen. Akol Koor Kuc, is July 15, 2021. Claims that he succumbed to COVID-19 complications are FALSE.

This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.