A/HRC/40/CRP.1 a) National Security Service Detention Facilities The NSS headquarters, commonly referred to as the “Blue House”, is the NSS’s main detention facility in Juba. However, the NSS also has a number of other locations it uses to detain people which are both formal and informal. Among those where the Commission documented detainees being held are: the Riverside detention facility in Juba, the Luri training centre to the south of Juba, the Jubek State National Security in Hai Gabat, the Dar Petroleum Operating Company (DPOC) Office, an NSS facility in Hai Jalaba, the Media Authority offices, Juba International Airport and a number of unofficial locations around the city including in Muniki, Gudele, Mangateen, Jebel, and Jebel Nyoko. The NSS also has offices and detention facilities throughout the country. The Commission also documented cases where detainees were held in NSS facilities outside of Juba in Yei, Wau and Yambio. Around mid-2015, detainees from a number of detention facilities in Juba, including NSS Riverside and unofficial facilities, were transferred to the Blue House. Nonetheless, recent cases documented by the Commission indicate that some of these locations are still operating. NSS “Blue House” Headquarters The NSS headquarters is located in the Jebel neighbourhood of Juba and is commonly called the “Blue House” because of the main building’s blue colour. The Blue House compound comprises a number of buildings partitioned by walls separating different areas of the compound. The compound also contains offices for the Minister of National Security and the Director-General of NSS. The main Blue House building houses most of the NSS administrators’ offices and, until late 2015, was also the detention facility. Until late 2015, detainees were housed in the main Blue House building, when the new detention facility was completed. Most cells held between eight and ten people and were described as overcrowded, dirty and infested with mosquitoes and cockroaches. There were also a number of small solitary confinement cells measuring approximately one and a half by two metres. There were only very tiny windows with no ventilation. No mattresses or sheets were provided and detainees had to sleep directly on the hard floor. The cells in the main Blue House building did not have toilets, so detainees had to knock on the door for guards to let them out to use the facilities; during the night, they were given a bucket to use. Detainees were normally allowed a very short shower daily, though sometimes they had to go without for two or three days. The new Blue House detention facility which opened in late 2015 has two floors. Most of the political prisoners are kept on the upper floor of the detention facility while other types of detainees such as criminal cases are generally held on the ground floor. The upper floor has two rows of cells divided by a corridor, each with their own self-contained bathroom. The upper floor also has a number of smaller solitary confinement cells, referred to as “zanzan”, measuring one metre by one metre whose occupants have to use a bathroom at the end of the corridor and rely on the guards to allow them to access these facilities. The solitary confinement cells have only a very small window for air. Sometimes the guards close the shutters of the windows and turn off the lights, plunging the occupants into complete darkness. One of the solitary confinement cells is reportedly used as an armoury. The conditions in the new detention facility are reportedly somewhat better than those in the main building as there is less infestation and vermin. In 2016, NSS officers started allowing detainees out of their cells to stand on the platform on the upper floor overlooking the lower floor after some detainees in solitary confinement started developing paralysis from lack of movement. One witness explained: Paralysis was actually a common sickness within National Security Service detention... Some detainees became paralysed because of the beatings and some developed paralysis due to limited movement - the only place we could go as detainees was to the toilet and back, but otherwise, we had no recreation, no exercise, nothing... and we were sleeping on a hard floor made of tiles.416 Until mid-2015, two meals a day were provided at the Blue House, in the morning and late afternoon; however, since then, reportedly after the arrival of a new administrator, only one meal per day has been provided and occasionally none at all. As in other detention 416 60 Witness 950, ERN 101955-101979.