By Ijoo Bosco
The press secretary in the office of the Eastern Equatoria State Governor said calm has returned to the Eastern Equatoria border town of Ikwoto and businesses started to move on as usual with the deployed forces in the ground.
Aliardo Lotok said, the two days incident that had claimed lives of three people started in a drinking joint at Hai Turuju residential area In Ikotos County causing hundreds of the civilian in the town to run for safety with the exchange of gunfire between the youth and the army.
Lotok urged all the communities residing in Ikotos town to refrain from causing chaos in the area and have mutual relationship with the military deployed to protect them in the county.
He appealed for peace and harmony to prevail in the area to allow people go about their daily activities without interruptions.
“Well a few days ago there was an incident in the town of Ikwoto where an SSPDF soldier was shot allegedly by one of the member of the IO soldiers there in Ikwoto town and so that killing of the SSPDF officer spark tensions between SSDPF and members of the youth in Ikwoto County” Lotok narrated.
“It’s an isolated incident we did not really want people to magnify this matter to look at it as if their was something beyond control in Ikotos town so the issue has been controlled as we speak now calm has returned to Ikwotos town, the population that fled the area had returned to their homes and the military the security forces are patrolling and they have already assured us that the town is safe and its surrounding areas are peaceful so there is no cause for alarm” he elaborated.
Lotok affirmed that security apparatuses have been deployed in the town to calm the security situation in the area, saying investigations are ongoing to arrest the perpetrators of the violence.
The press secretary called on the different security agencies based in Ikwoto to cooperate and jointly address the security challenges affecting the town and its surrounding Payams within Ikotos County that have been experiencing insecurity in the last three months.
“We are urging the people of Ikwoto County to really ensure that they co-exist peacefully we don’t want conflict we don’t want people to quarrel it’s time for us as people of Eastern Equatoria State to develop our localities to develop our counties” he said.
“So there is no need for the people of Ikwoto county to go into conflict that is meaningless it’s very senseless conflict that happen in town in a drinking place more ever and we don’t want it to escalate further let it end there and we open a new page” he added.
Lotok said they know the person who started that incident has to be arrested to face the full force of the law because they don’t want people to be rude.
“We want people to be peaceful in this State and we don’t want people to take law into their hand so that incident has been resolved Ikotos is now calm and livelihood of the people has resume normally” he asserted.
He called for peace and unity among the Ikwoto community to remove the hatred and revenge attitudes amongst the youth in the County.
The killing of the three young men in Ikotos town who are all sons of the region, and the injured officer had earlier sparked high tension in Ikotos town, disrupting normal activities. But, with the presence of the security sent from the state capital, normalcy has been restored.
The State lawmakers have entreated the State and national government to convene civil military dialogue in the county to help built trust and confident between the civil population and the military in the area.
Ikwoto County is one amongst the gift of the revitalize agreement that fall into the hand of the SPLM-Io hence causing more confusion to the local communities that required more sensitization in the area.