The UN mission in South Sudan on Monday condemned the targeted killings of civilians based on their ethnic origins and nationality in Bentiu.

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said the attacks took place in hospitals, mosques and churches, and a UN World Food Program (WFP) compound.

Officer in Charge of UNMISS, Raisedon Zenenga said in a statement that UNMISS Human Rights investigators have confirmed that when opposition forces captured Bentiu last week, they searched a number of places where hundreds of South Sudanese and foreign civilians had taken refuge and killed hundreds of the civilians after determining their ethnicity or nationality.

The attacks took place between April 15 and 16 when UNMISS extracted hundreds of civilians, some injured, who had taken refuge in places throughout Bentiu and Rubkona.

The mission is currently protecting more than 12,000 civilians on its base, and some 60,000 others around the country

Since the hostilities that erupted between the government and opposition forces last December, about 75,000 civilians have found refuge from violence in UN bases across the country.

Zenenga reminded the parties of their respective obligations to protect civilians and called on them to immediately stop the targeting of innocent, unarmed civilians, and to respect the ceasefire deal they signed in January.

The official also strongly condemned the use of Radio Bentiu FM by some individuals associated with the opposition to broadcast hate speech.

Over the past two months, thousands of people are believed to have been killed by fighting that began in mid-December 2013 as a political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy president, Riek Machar.