Rumbek street children fight local trader over theft allegation

By Manyang Mayom

June 24, 2010 (RUMBEK) — Over 20 street kids in Rumbek clashed on Monday with a local businessman in the town market, resulting to injures.

The street children attacked the businessman, Khemis Jackson, after their colleague was beaten up by the trader who accused the boy of stealing beer from his stock while trying to offload goods from his truck.

Reacting in defense of their colleague whom they said was beaten up until he fainted while sustaining injury in his arm, some other street children mobilized themselves and attacked Khemis with sticks and stones before the police could intervene.

Khamis explained the attack as surprising to him. “I am really surprised when I saw the children coming across side by side with sticks and stones in their hands. They beat me badly and I was confused to confront [them] first as they were too many in front of me,” he said.

However, before being dragged to the police station, Khemis recalled that it was not the first time the street kids stole beer from him, adding that the kids have always disappeared with a number of bottles of beer whenever he was offloading his beer from a truck.

The trader said he was trying to discipline the child and couldn’t expect the issue to cause his arrest by the police.

One of the street children, Sebit Majak, who also involved in the clashes, denied that his colleague did not steal beer as claimed by the trader, saying he was only drunk. “My colleague has just drunk alcohol which has nothing to do with stealing. This is daily harassment happening; we are beaten up by mistake by those businessmen, accusing us of stealing,” he said, adding that not all of them were however thieves.

“There is no protection from state government at the moment. I called upon the governor, Chol Tong to urgently address this problem. We are going to die and it is because our families are not taking care of us – I wish [governor] Chol could take care of us because we are also part of future,” he continued, alleging that they [the street children] also voted for the governor during the April elections.

He called upon Lakes state governor to give them a good place anywhere in Rumbek to be protected from cruel treatment from members of the public. “Let the government try to give us a safe place where we cannot be harmed by these unwise traders who always accuse us of theft cases,” he appealed.

Since 2008, the number children roaming the streets in the state capital, Rumbek, has been on the rise. The children come from across eight counties of the state and there seems to be no plan by the state government to rescue the situation.

During the elections campaign, however, the incumbent elected governor, Engineer Chol Tong Mayay, promised that some measures would be taken to get the children out of streets.

(ST)