Jonglei: One man killed and two children abducted
September 19, 2013 (BOR) – A man in South Sudan’s Jonglei state was shot and killed on Wednesday night during an attack in which his two daughters, aged 6 and 8 years old, were abducted from their home, according to the commissioner of Bor county.
Local people have accused criminals from the Murle ethnic group, which is synonymous with child abduction in South Sudan, of carrying out the raid which killed the man.
Ayen Bol, the wife of the dead man, told Sudan Tribune that she was asleep when the men broke into the house at around midnight.
“They pushed the door, my husband asked them ‘who are you?’ Immediately, they shot three bullets through the door, we all went aside for hiding. One person came around the window and shot [my husband] and the rest forced their way in through the door, and they shot him again several times inside the house”, she said.
“They took the children and went, I tried to run after them but I returned when they fired at me”, she continued.
A woman in the neighborhood was wounded when she and her husband tried to come to the aid of the family. She has been admitted into Bor civil hospital but is reported to be in a good condition.
Eyewitnesses say they saw four men running away with the two children.
The acting governor of Jonglei state, Gabriel Duop Lam, who paid a visit to the crime scene, told the public that a platoon of police would be deployed in the area to protect civilians.
Duop condemned the killings and conveyed his condolence to the family of the deceased before the funeral took place on Thursday.
Last year, the South Sudanese government conducted a disarmament campaign in all eleven counties of Jonglei state. Nearly 12,000 firearms were collected but some communities hid their weapons, whereas others have rearmed themselves, or were rearmed by the rebel leader David Yauyau, who has been operating in Pibor county, the home of the Murle ethnic group.
Human rights groups have condemned the conduct of South Sudan’s army in Jonglei state and called for more accountability among the young nation’s military.
(ST)