A/HRC/40/CRP.1 for the continuing violence, the ensuing human suffering, and the violations of international humanitarian law witnessed there. This is also manifested in the fact that, following initial clashes in Juba in late 2013, fighting almost immediately spread and was waged with brutal intensity in oil-rich regions, taking into account also the long-standing ethnic tensions existing in these areas.1002 Furthermore, and as discussed below, the location of the oil fields aggravated the contentious nature of the re-drawing of administrative boundaries under the 28 and 32 States Decrees of 2015 and 2017, respectively. Two of the newly created states under this Decree (Ruweng, created in 2015, and Northern Upper Nile, created in 2017), both of which have a majority Dinka population, now include the country’s major operational oil fields. While there are other drivers of the conflict, including historic grievances and local and national power-struggles, oil is intrinsically linked to the conflict, because control over the country’s foremost source of income is a top prize in the struggle for political and economic power.1003 Other parts of the country that are rich in natural resources, such as timber in the Equatorias, making them strategic areas to control, have equally suffered from intensive conflict, large-scale displacement, and other human rights violations. As a result, and as in the past three decades, civilians living in these areas rich in natural resources continue to be among those most at risk of conflict-related crimes in South Sudan. The more recent armed conflict in South Sudan has also mirrored the past, as many of the military and security modes of operation, including the perpetration of human rights violations that accompanied the initial period of oil exploration and the second civil war have once again been witnessed in these areas several decades later.1004 In particular, the militarization and securitization linked to the oil production involves the intertwining of regular military and security forces and paramilitary engaged in fighting in and around the oil fields has been a feature of all these conflicts. South Sudan as well as Sudan have displayed a pattern of habitually using proxy forces both to wage ethnically and politically motivated armed conflict, as well as to secure and guard oil fields, in the course of which, these forces have regularly committed serious human rights violations. 1005 For example, the Sudanese Government reportedly armed and instructed proxy militia from the Misseriya, an Arab pastoralist tribe from the former Kordofan province in Sudan, to violently displace the local population in the oil-rich Bentiu area in Unity State in the 1980s.1006 Similarly, in Upper Nile State, local Dinka Padang militia were paid by the South Sudanese government to guard the Palouch oil field – at the time the only operational oil venture securing revenue for the country1007 – and they simultaneously carried out military operations and atrocities against the local Shilluk population in 2014-2015.1008 At a later stage, as noted in the Commission’s 2018 Report, armed conflict in Upper Nile State in mid2017 was linked to an SPLA offensive to remove SPLA-IO from the area, including the Palouch oil field, resulting in acts of killings, sexual violence, and pillage committed against the civilian population.1009 James, Laura M., “Fields of Control: Oil and (In)security in Sudan and South Sudan”, Small Arms Survey, Human Security Baseline Assessment for South Sudan and Sudan, Working Paper 40, 2015, p. 8; Human Rights Council: Assessment Mission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to improve human rights, accountability, reconciliation and capacity in South Sudan: detailed findings, UN Doc No: A/HRC/31/CRP.6, 10 March 2016, paras. 82, 250-251. 1003 Confidential Meeting, 13 December 2018; The African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan quotes a South Sudanese interlocutor on economic aspects of the conflict: “ the core issue is struggle for power, two, struggle to control resources. Actually resources of this country were actually been given by top politicians to support their own relatives. It is not all South Sudanese that have benefited. So the oil revenue that we have had in South Sudan is actually becoming a tool to harm the South Sudanese”, Final Report of the African Union Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan, 15 October 2014, para. 239. 1004 Confidential Meeting, Juba 13 December 2018. 1005 James, Laura M., “Fields of Control: Oil and (In)security in Sudan and South Sudan”, Small Arms Survey, Human Security Baseline Assessment for South Sudan and Sudan, Working Paper 40, 2015, p. 12. 1006 Human Rights Watch, “Famine in Sudan: The Human Rights Causes”, 1 February 1999, pp. 19-20, 69. 1007 Confidential Meeting, 17 December 2018. 1008 Human Security Baseline Assessment for Sudan and South Sudan, “The Conflict in Upper Nile State”, Small Arms Survey, 2016, pp. 3, 9; The Sentry, “Fueling Atrocities, Oil and War in South Sudan”, March 2018, p. 3. 1009 Human Rights Council, Report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, A/HRC/37/71, 13 March 2018, Section VIII(E). 1002 130