C. Equatoria arrests 8 over burnt houses

January 4, 2012 (JUBA) – Security officials in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria State have arrested eight suspects in connection with last year’s burning of house in Yei River County.

Security personnel, acting on instructions from the county commissioner, arrested the suspects after unknown people torched over 20 houses in Yei, located 100 miles south-west of the capital, Juba.

“We have arrested eight and six have already been investigated, we are left with two. We are pursuing more and two have already confessed to having taken part in burning the houses,” Juma David Augustine, the Yei country commissioner told Radio Miraya.

He further said the manner which the houses were burnt meant that it was hard to figure out how the houses could have caught the fire.

An investigation committee, the commissioner said, arrived in the county this week to probe the fire incident headed by, Cecilia Oba Tito, Central Equatoria’s minister for cabinet affairs.

(ST)