South Sudan army unit ransacks Kajokeji market
June 14, 2016 (JUBA) – A unit of the faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a co-national army of South Sudan under the command of President Salva Kiir, has ransacked a market in Kajokeji county of the proposed Yei River (Central Equatoria) state, sparking armed confrontation in which more than 20 lives were lost.
Local accounts from eyewitnesses attributed the cause to the deployment of a unit of the SPLA force to Nyepo payam, located north of Kajokeji, without the knowledge and approval of the local authorities.
“The report I received from the area is that the humanitarian situation is dire after this incident. The civilians have fled their homes. They are sleeping out in the open and in churches with limited capacity to accommodate them,” a legislator representing Kajokeji at the national legislative assembly in Juba said Monday in an exclusive interview.
“Also these are places which were not meant to residences. They were meant for something else,” he added.
The lawmaker who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals claimed the armed confrontation was sparked by the behaviours of some elements of government’s forces who entered the market to loot.
“My daughter and my brother were in the market when this incident occurred. What they told me and has been confirmed by several people is that some elements of the SPLA forces that were deployed to Kajokeji recently on dubious grounds decided to go to the market and started taking food items by force from owners,” he said.
The national army forces, he said, argued that the government had not paid them salary for long and that they had no money to pay for the food.
“When they were asked to pay, they refused and said that they have not been paid by the government. Now who did not pay them, government or the civilians, asked the legislator? “This was caused the fight because youth felt agitated and so decided to stop intimidation,” he explained
Other sources claimed that the clashes erupted when armed men loyal to the first vice president, Riek Machar, decided to intervene upon seeing the intimidation of the natives by the SPLA forces.
Upon the clash in the market, according to another source, the local command of the army unit in the area decided to send reinforcements from the main barrack in Mundari area in central Kajokeji but their movement was intercepted and fell into ambush laid on the way and lives were lost.
Another reinforcement sent from Juba fell in an ambush and additional lives were lost.
It is unclear how many lives have been lost from both sides. Many sources put figures of the government killed in two ambushes at more than 20 soldiers but local residents put the figures higher.
(ST)