E. Equatoria disappoited as Ugandan neighbours fail to show up to peace meeting

By Ijoo Bosco

September 23, 2013 (TORIT) – Leaders from South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria state were left disappointed on Monday when their counterparts from Ngomoromo lamwoo District in Northern Uganda failed to show up for a border cooperation meeting on Sunday.

Eastern Equatoria state’s minister of local government, law enforcement and wildlife conservation, Charles Lokonoi Ambrose, was one of the South Sudanese officials who travelled to Ngomoromo lamwoo for the cancelled meeting.

The resident district commissioner of Ngomoromo lamwoo, Molly Achan, failed to turn up, minister Lokonoi said.

The purpose of the meeting was intended to create peace and cooperation among the peoples of Pogee boma [sub-district] in Pajok payam [district] of Magwi county and the people of Ngomoromo Lamwoo district in Northern Uganda.

The South Sudanese delegation said they arrived at the scheduled venue at the agreed time only to find no sign of the Ngomoromo lamwoo district representatives.

Minister Lokonoi said that is hard to resolve the “growing tension building among the two communities bordering each other” if such meetings do not take place. He added that his government will try to rearrange the meeting for later this week.

Magwi county commissioner, Francis Okech Oteka, said that his previous meetings with his Ngomoromo lamwoo counterpart had covered misunderstandings over land cultivation and cattle grazing along the border.

The commissioner said that the officials they were due to meet turned off their mobile phones when they tried to contact them on Sunday morning.

(ST)