Jonglei announces drop in violence as UN urges for peace
June 1, 2012 (BOR) – Jonglei State governor, Kuol Manyang Juuk, said Friday that there had been a 90 percent drop in raids and cases of abduction in his state during a visit to Bor of the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) in South Sudan, Hilde F. Johnson.
“The level of cattle raiding has totally reduced by over 90 percent. There is no child abduction reported again and there are very few cases of murder that are reported compare to what was there in the past”, said Juuk.
He attributed the recent calmness as the result of the state-wide six-week disarmament campaign that begun in mid-March and was followed by a political reconciliation process.
Johnson said South Sudan’s army (SPLA) had shown strong commitment to deal with the criminals violating the deal. Some groups did not handover their weapons.
“We are seeing that there are very strong commitments to take actions against the perpetrators”, Johnson said.
She said there were young men who avoided the disarmament process by remaining in the bush and that they were a threat to both the peace and the disarmament processes.
“There are still some youth that are not yet back into their communities and those are threat to both the peace processes and the disarmament process”, she added.
Johnson pledged UN commitment to support the state peace process and asked the citizens to adhere to it.
Early this year large-scale violence forced over 100,000 people to flee their homes, after 6,000 members of the Luo Nuer ethnic group entered Murle territory raiding cattle, and looking for people abducted in previous raids against them.
(ST)