Editor TLN
Dec. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The South Sudanese authorities have assured that a group of armed people who recently occupied the town of Gumuruk, in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area, have withdrawn from the area, amid an upsurge in inter-community clashes in this area of the country. african country.
The spokesman for the South Sudanese Army, Lul Ruai Koang, has stated that government forces re-entered the city on Wednesday afternoon, after the withdrawal of the assailants, who would have arrived at the site from the adjacent state of Jonglei.
“The Army returned to Gumuruk yesterday after the withdrawal of the young armed men from Jonglei, who left on their own,” he said in statements given to the Radio Tamazuj radio station. Likewise, he has stressed that the military is prepared to respond to this type of attack.
For his part, the Minister of Local Government of the Gran Pibor Administrative Area, Simon Peter Ajeny, has confirmed that the Army “has recaptured” the town of Gumuruk, while indicating that “the situation is difficult.” “The entire town, with 50,000 houses, three schools and a health center, has been reduced to ashes,” he pointed out.
James Morgan Pitia, representative of South Sudan before the African Union (AU), has asked the organization to help the central government in its efforts to achieve the disarmament and demobilization of this type of militia and has recalled that the bloc did the same ” when the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone ended,” according to Eye Radio.
The Jonglei authorities demanded on Wednesday that the central government intervene and end the fighting, while calling for the withdrawal of the assailants. In this sense, Jonglei’s Information Minister, John Samuel Manyoun, called these people “criminals.”
Last week the United Nations expressed its “deep concern” over calls for the mobilization of members of the Nuer community in Greater Jonglei and warned that it could lead to “massive attacks” against the population in this area of South Sudan.
South Sudan has a unity government that began after the materialization of the 2018 peace agreement between the president, Salva Kiir, and the rebel leader Riek Machar, which led to the latter returning to the position of first vice president from the African country.
Despite the decrease in violence due to the political conflict, the country has registered an increase in inter-community confrontations, mainly motivated by the theft of cattle and disputes between herders and farmers in the most fertile areas of the country, especially due to the increase in desertification and displacement of populations.
