Ezo-Tombura road opens after months of closure
August 25, 2016 (YAMBIO) – The road connecting Yambio, Ezo and Tombura counties in Gbudue, one of South Sudan’s newly-created Gbudue states has been re-opened by the national army (SPLA) after three months of closer by armed youth using huge logs.
The local government and law enforcement minister in the state, Jackson Ezekiel Buguwa said the army successfully re-opened the roads connecting Ezo and Tombura.
“I congratulate the SPLA forces for opening the roads connecting the State headquarters with Ezo and Tombura County without challenge on the way,” he said.
Buguwa further said authorities in the state had dispatched the SPLA forces to open the road peacefully or forcefully to Ezo and Tombura so that medicines and humanitarian assistance could reach the people living in a terrible situation.
The SPLA forces combined with the organized forces managed to clear all the trees on the roads making it easier to travel to those areas and also push faraway the armed groups along the roads.
Humanitarian agencies and partners, the minister said, were now free to go those areas for assessment and to help the displaced persons who have been living in bushes since the violence broke several months back.
The SPLA have recovered some looted NGOs items which includes solar panels and other valuable items in the Primary health care unity in the county, he said.
Daniel Rakazi of Medicines San Frontier (MSF) said the medical charity managed to reach Yambio, Ezo and Tombura, providing drugs to people living with the HIV/Aids epidermic.
Last month, however, MSF said it tried to transport the HIV/Aids drugs to Ezo, but their vehicle could not return to Yambio because roads were closed while they were in Ezo.
Thousands of civilians in Ezo county fled to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central Africa Republic (CAR) due to the conflict which erupted between the government forces and the armed groups in the area killing dozens of the population.
(ST)