By Deng David Panchol
A Member of Parliament in Jonglei State legislative assembly said armed criminals suspected to be from Greater Pibor Administrative Area attacked cattle herders in Uror County, killing three herders yesterday.
The armed criminals also injured two other people and went away with more than two thousand herds of cattle.
Wany Bum Mahkor, chairperson for information and communication in Jonglei State revitalized legislative assembly condemned the attackers.
He said that five herders have also been reported to be missing.
He lamented that the youth in Uror tried to repel the attackers to recuse their cattle but were outnumbered.
The MP said he was worried that the peace initiatives between the two sisterly neighbours will collapse following the attacks carried out by armed criminals from GPAA.
“This incident has shocked the government of Jonglei and the effort of returning all the abductees to Pibor Administrative Area. This incident is a surprise to people of Jonglei. GPAA were supposed to benefit from the peace initiative between the two states. And they are the one benefiting a lot from this peace initiative. When armed youth from Jonglei State went to Pibor, they abducted women and children but the state government returned all the abductees. Jonglei respect the government call to end violence between the two states and we have respected it and returned all the abductees,” he explained.
” I believe if Pibor youth continue with this hostility, it will force Jonglei youth to retaliate and revenge killing may happen and at the end Jonglei youth will not be blamed because we tried as a government to ensure that we live in peace with our neighbor Pibor,” he added.
He urged the national government to disarm armed Murle youth to end the attacks.
He stated that arm embargo charged on South Sudan by international community has delayed the deployment of forces at the buffer zone to control criminals from either sides.
“The reason why the establishment of the buffer zone between the two sisterly states failed is because we don’t have enough forces who are well equipped with arms,” he said.
So, what I am trying to say is that if the international community wants peace in the country, then they should lift the arms embargo and arm our forces and direct them to disarm citizens who are having weapons. So, disarming the civilians is very difficult because forces don’t even have weapons to protect people,” he mentioned.
Meanwhile Abraham Kelang, the Greater Pibor Administrative Area Minister of Information and Communication said he was not aware of any attack carried out by armed youth from Pibor Administrative Area.