Africa-Press – South-Sudan. By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
Eye Radio’s editor, Woja Emmanuel was allegedly kidnapped, drugged, and forced to drink unknown substances before being taken by unknown gunmen in Juba. Woja was later found and he is currently undergoing treatment.
In the story published on Eye Radio, he said one of the kidnappers, who pretended to have known him, first called him by name and wanted to hug him, before he was put at gunpoint and forced into the car.
“I was picked up a few meters away from Eye Radio’s premises at around 9 O’clock on Wednesday morning by men who were driving a tinted white Harrier car,”
“One of the kidnappers pretended to have known me,he then first called me by name and wanted to hug me, in reply then asked the man where he had known me from before I was put at gunpoint and forced into the car, while I was being driven away,I was made to drink from a bottle and in the process I became drunk,” he said
He further narrated that, “I was then driven to an unknown location where they questioned me on issues related to politics and then drugged me,” Meanwhile, He later escaped at around 8 pm when the kidnappers dumped him around Rajaf west, not knowing where he was, he walked through the bush, crossing streams until he found himself at Lologo 2 police station.
In his Part, the President of the Union of Journalists in South Sudan (UJOSS)PatrickOyetcondemned the abduction of Journalist, saying that if anyone has a problem with journalists should report even to the media Authority and they will be the ones to call the media house where that particular journalist is working instead of taking the law in your hand.
“If you have problem with us Journalists in any way, there is Media Authority to report too, and they will be the ones to call either the Media House the Journalist works for or they will call that Journalist accused of whatever thing it might be, but taking law into your hand is not right,” he said.
He also called upon the authorities to find the perpetrators and be held accountable. South Sudan ranked fourth on Committee to Project Journalists’ 2021 Impunity Index, which calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of a country’s population.
However, killers of journalists still getaway in many countries with no one held to account, in 81% of journalist murders during the last 10 years. Last week, the National Security Service refuted a report that it illegally detained eight journalists while covering a press conference at the national parliament in Juba.
The NSS were responding to a call by the Committee to Protect Journalists urging the South Sudanese authorities to cease harassing and threatening journalists for their work.
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