By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
A Widowed mother of four children currently sheltering at an Internally Displaced Persons’ Camp in Gumbo is calling on the government to facilitate faster evacuation of cattle herders to their place of origin to enable her safely return to her home village.
Akello Josephine who is now taking refuge in Gumbo ` described life in Magwi County where they fled as terrible and unbearable.
She disclosed to No 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper that her husband and brother were killed in the attack allegedly caused by the cattle herders on their village (Panyikwara), which made her to flee the her home village for safety.
“I reached here on the 8th March 2022, we have not been getting any support for our livelihood, we stay here with children and our children are suffering, the hunger is too much,” Josephine exclaimed.
“If it starts to rain, it washes us out because we don’t have any place for shelter. Other children have started school but ours are here loitering yet we can even get work and earn a wage from it.” Josephine narrated their misery.
She further described life in Juba as a tag of war as they are unable to afford medications for their children, when they fall sick.
“I had worked for someone’s restaurant but the owner of the business failed to pay me and this made me to fear to look for another job,” she cited.
The IDP, widowed mother of four expressed her ambitions to return home, as long as the cattle herders leave to their place of origin she will be more than willing to get back home.
“If the cattle herders have moved away from our home, we shall return. This not my home, I have a home that I will return too” “People have been disappearing from their homes, farm lands but later found dead. I cannot go back there, how I will survive when I cannot go to farm or fetch firewood?” she expressed her only fear back home.
“Let the government derive a plan for us. Herders must completely be evacuated so that we return to our home and not loiter in this Juba with a very senseless life”. She reiterated her appeal to the authorities.
“If the government does not plan and forcefully evict the herders from the areas, returning home is impossible. I cannot return there” Josephine protested.