Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Acting Information Minister of Central Equatoria State has said armed groups are taking advantage of weak law enforcement to commit atrocities against civilians in Morobo and Yei River counties.
Jacob Aligo Lo-Lado, who is also the state Minister of Peacebuilding, said the two counties have seen a spike in insecurity in recent days, with at least two people killed and eight others abducted along the Yei-Kaya Road by gunmen believed to be affiliated with the opposition National Salvation Front/Army (NAS).
The latest incidents follow the abduction of ten people in Lasu Payam of Yei River County and the burning of two vehicles in Morobo County.
Minister Lo-Lado, who spoke on Eye Radio’s Sundown program, said two vehicles were ambushed and looted in a separate incident in Lotopio of Gulumbe Payam, Morobo County.
“The situation is always reported to be generally normal, but do we have incidences of road ambushes, like what happened on Yei-Kaya Road, where in an area called the Lotopio of Gulumbe Payam in Morobo County, two trucks or vehicles carrying civilians were attacked, leading to one person killed on spot and another one who got injured,” he said.
The minister added that the injured person, who had been transferred to Uganda for treatment, later died from their wounds.
He said those abducted in an earlier incident were later released, but their belongings were looted.
“And there was some site of the Morobo in a Boma called Kembe where eight people were abducted by the holdout groups. And they were later released, according to the information we got from the commission of Morobo County. There are also incidents of looting,” he said.
Minister Lo-Lado said the lack of sufficient law enforcement personnel has created an environment where criminals operate with impunity.
“I want to tell you that we, as a state of Central Equatoria, face a lot of challenges in the enforcement of law and order because we don’t have sufficient law enforcement agents or personnel,” he decried.
“As a state, we don’t have. We have very few policemen. And for long, of course, there was no recruitment of new police personnel. So, you find that most of the police that we are middle-aged or even old people who cannot manage the current security challenges,” he added.
Source: Eye Radio
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