By Akol Madut Ngong
Greater Pibor Administrative Area authorities said the security situation in the area has been relatively calm for almost two months after series of insecurity incidents were reported related to crimes such as cattle rustling and child abduction amongst the neighbouring communities.
Speaking to No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper yesterday via phone, the deputy commissioner of police in Greater Pibor Administrative Area Brigadier General Cilo Kuyet Duren said the security situation has improved for the last two months.
“Greater Pibor Administrative Area had experienced large-scale inter-communal and sub-national violence, mainly during the dry season, and massive flooding during the rainy season has displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Jonglei and Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) in 2019 and 2020 even 2022”.
The impact of human disaster and natural disaster is that it creates conflict, insecurity; flooding and COVID-19 restrictions have severely impacted humanitarian organizations’ ability to reach the most vulnerable people with much-needed assistance.
Successive cycles of inter-communal violence and seasonal flooding are not new to Jonglei and GPAA, however, both have intensified in the last few years. As a result of the violence and flooding, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, increasing their vulnerability and acute humanitarian needs.
The people in Jonglei and GPAA were first affected by four waves of large-scale, organized violence during the dry season in the year back, Inter-communal violence and revenge attacks at the sub-national level displaced an estimated 157,000 people in the Bor South, Duk, Nyirol, Twic East and Uror counties and GPAA. Then, an estimated 387,000 people in Jonglei and another 141,000 people in GPAA were affected by floods during the last rainy season.