By Adia Jildo
A forex bureau at Juba’s Nyakuron neighborhood is counting losses after falling prey of a daylight robbery by armed men losing at least 37,000 United States Dollars and 5 gadgets to the bandits.
Isaac Awule, the manager of the forex said the incident that happened at around 4 PM left them at risk of losing both their lives and the money.
“We never expected anything to happen like that, they came in and put us on gun point and said if we talked, they would should us,” he said.
Awule narrated that two young men had come in like usual customers when they pulled out their guns at them forcing them to lay down flat on the floor.
“One guy entered here asking whether we could send money to Kenya, and we told him that we don’t have that service. In the time of the robbery, he was there,” the forex manager noted.
He blamed the situation on insecurity citing no deployment of security personnel to safe guard civilians’ property and their lives.
“We applied that we wanted security and no feedback was given up to now and we lost all the things,” he said.
Awule feared that, the loss would be the end of the business as there was no guarantee to recover the money.
“The problem of unknown gunmen is very rampant. There was no deployment of security guards who could see all these business places incase of any robbery or theft,”
He worried that the lost money would not be recovered saying the occurrence was not the first of its kind.
“We need security for us to continue with our business,” he said.
Esther Sunday, the cashier at the forex said the incident left her so frustrated, disturbed and unable to sleep.
“As a customer was giving his money to be changed, two men came on a boda boda. They entered and the boda boda rider left and the two of them entered here and put us on gun point,” she narrated the ordeal.
“I was not able to sleep the whole night, I cried”. She continued “We who are working can also lose our interest to work because this is a situation of being put on a gun point, maybe if I were to shout, then I would be shot”.
The armed robbers thereafter reportedly locked the manager, one customer and the cashier inside the forex and took off leaving with all the money.
The forex has for the second time made loses as a sum of 15,000 United States dollars were robbed in the beginning of the year in a similar scenario.