Man injured in Lakes state robbery
April 11, 2013 (RUMBEK) – Two days after a new Lakes State’s Legislative Assembly passed a Firearms Bill on Tuesday, a robbery in Wulu county has left one person injured.
Wulu county’s commissioner, Ezekiel Thiang Mangar, said that Abraham Akrong was shot in his right arm by unknown gunman on Thursday and has been admitted to hospital in Rumbek central county.
The suspected road robberies managed to steal a motorbike belonging to Akrong in what Thiang described as a “surprise ambush”.
“The presence of arms in hand of civilians is a threat – this is very bad.”
The Firearms Bill, which the governor hopes will reduce cattle raiding and violence between ethnic groups. The law imposed three year sentences against any person who does not register their firearms, including a fine of 5,000 South Sudanese Pounds (SSP).
Commissioner Thiang said that after news of the incident reached Wulu county his community have worked to discourage young men from carrying out a revenge attack against those they suspected of being responsible.
Shadrack Bol Machuok, a Wulu county MP, visited Akrong at Rumbek hospital. He said that the victim requires an operation as his right arm was badly broken by a bullet.
“The victim have also explained to me that they were travelling as two people on one motorbike and they were being stopped by a group of young men carrying firearms. One person escape away and one sustain gunshot wound and their motorbike was taken away by suspected road robbers.”
Bol explained that “the ambush occurred between Gurmar and Wulu county headquarters.” The two men tried to escape but were shot as they drove away.
Bol said that the government must increase the collection of all illegal arms in the state. “The present of arms in civilian’s hands is a cause of all those messes. Robbery and raiding will get reduce if firearms are collected”, he said.
Now the law was passed the government must focus on registering illegal arms and tracking illegal arms among the civilian population.
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit removed Lakes state’s elected Governor Chol Tong Mayay without reason in January and replaced him with military caretaker Governor Maj-Gen Matur Chut Dhuol. It is believed that Mayay was sacked due to his failure to reduce insecurity.
Hundreds of young men have been arrested and are being held at three military prisons in Langcok, Pulkuc and Ajakangau, as part of the new governor’s hardline security politics. Governor Dhoul’s policy has controversially been to prevent the arrested men from access to lawyers and their families or have their cases heard in court.
Prisoners detained at the military prisons, and at Rumbek Correctional Prison, are reported to have been tortured and harassed.
Recently, the military caretaker Governor Dhuol told a rally in Rumbek’s Freedom Square that four judges have been approved by the South Sudan Supreme Court to be sent to Rumbek to settle the large number of outstanding cases.
None of the four judges have yet arrived in Rumbek.
Some Rumbek citizens have criticised President Kiir for undermining South Sudan’s transitional constitution that grants him the power to remove an elected governor for reasons of national security and replace him with an appointed governor.
However, the constitution states that an election must be held with 60 days to find a new governor. Mayay was sacked over 80 days ago.
(ST)