By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
A violent protest in Upper Nile State capital Malakal triggered by reshuffling of Malakal Municipal Council staff has reportedly left one person dead and nine others injured according to State authorities.
Upper Nile State Information Minister, Luke Saddalla Deng confirmed the incident to No.1 Citizen Daily Newspaper yesterday.
He said the security organs were protecting both their lives and the Government Offices from the civilians’ fierce protest.
At least seven civilians and two soldiers were reported injured by security organs and one person succumbed to serious injuries after being rushed to the hospital, during the alleged brutal protest in Malakal town.
Totally ten people including two soldiers were hurt during the confrontation between the protesters and the security personnel and one among the injured died after her surgery in the hospital.
While among the group two are female and the rest are males.
“Malakal City Council has done some administration reshuffling to its officers, some of them (staff) were taken to Municipality and some of them were returned to local government, some of the people within the Municipality where within since the Central Upper Nile State time,”
“This people refused and they are saying they still need to work as Central Upper Nile, they wrote their petition and we as the government we refused their idea that we should still work as Central Upper Nile, because we have become Upper Nile not Central, then I think they went and started the protest but they were later stopped, that was last week,” Sadalla explained.
He further said some of the protest ringleaders who had earlier on signed the petition to the office of the Deputy Governor were arrested and investigation is still ongoing to enable the rest to be caught.
“Again there was a group who wrote a petition to the Deputy Governor who is the current acting governor, while in the process they were supposed to wait for the response, but instead they went and grouped up and started a brutal protest, and wanting to break the offices, which led to the security organs to stand their side to protect them from breaking,” Sadalla lamented.
“While stopping them (protesters) they went and started stoning the soldiers, which led to some soldiers getting injured in the process, in this situation maybe the soldiers decided to depend themselves, In the process they injured two women and six men, from there one woman later on passed on in the hospital,” the information Minister narrated.