Jonglei governor demands return of stolen all animals

January 3, 2017 (BOR) – The Governor of South Sudan’s Jonglei state has appealed to the army and police to ensure the safe return nearly 12,000 herds of cattle stolen from the Jalle community during a raid conducted last year.

Speaking during a rally held in the capital, Bor, Philip Aguer, said his government agreed with the central government on how to bring back the stolen of heads of cattle from suspected Murle raiders who attacked and killed 17 people.

The government is planning to use the army and the organized forces to bring back all the stolen heads of cattle.

“We have reported all heads of cattle we lost in December 2016 to the central government and the government has agreed to return all these heads of cattle,” said Aguer.

He added, “And the government that will bring them is the police and the army, if you are a registered police or army officer, you must be ready 100 per cent”.

Boma and Jonglei state had signed a peace deal that was meant to curve down criminal activities between Dinka and Murle ethnic tribes in earlier in December last year.

But this seemed not holding as Jonglei state experienced a lot of attacks just few days after the accord was signed.

Despite all these, the governor was still hopeful that this New Year will be a year of peace in the world’s youngest nation.

“2017 will be a year of peace. With peace, you cannot leave your rights to someone, so we will bring back anything that was taken away from us. Criminals in Boma state must be searched for, this year. There is nobody who is a criminal when we know where he lives”, explained Aguer.

“I hope the bad things we faced last year will not be experienced this year, we hope for good things,” he added.

The state government, the governor admitted, faced several challenges in relations to limited services delivery to, but stressed that they managed to develop plans and polices, although not much was actually implemented.

“As the government, we did not do much last year. We managed to develop our master plan and policies and objectives of what to be done in every ministry, but we did not go far in implementation,” stressed Aguer.

He added, “You see the hospital is very weak, all roads are not good, and we have not managed security either”.

On his part, the Bishop of Bor, Rubben Akurdit, blamed the people of South Sudan for creating insecurity to themselves.

(ST)