By Aweye Teddy Onam
Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, has condemned the killing of chiefs in Duk County, Jonglei State.
He also called for action from authorities to hold the perpetrators behind the killings accountable.
“I would like to take this opportunity to raise my voice loudly as a voice of concern to the political leadership of the country and in particular to his Excellency President and honorable Governor of Jonglei State that we are seriously disturbed by this new trend of targeting chiefs lives or killing of chiefs in Duk County,” CEPO’s Executive Director, Mr. Edmund Yakani, said in a statement extended to this outlet.
“Now that Mayan was killed as a second chief after the killing of the first chief, we are disturbed, and we strongly condemn the act of targeting the lives of chiefs,” he continued.
Yakani said, as an activist, he feels there’s a new culture coming up where killing chiefs openly has been used as an instrument of punishing communities.
“This must stop, and this cannot stop in an easy way. People must be held accountable behind this new trend of killing of chiefs in an extrajudicial manner by so-called unknown gunmen.” He echoed
He stressed that the issue of the Duk crisis, where lives have been lost, and particularly the two chiefs who have been extra judicially murdered, must be resolved politically, saying some of these incidents are politically motivated.
“So, I would like to take this opportunity to urge his Excellency President to direct the political leadership of Jonglei State to investigate this new trend of deaths of chiefs who have been killed in Duk County, which we strongly condemn, and I’m appealing to his Excellency President. The situation in Duk requires his attention in a similar manner that he handled the issue of Twic Mayardit and Dinka Ngok.”
Yakani said though others say armed cattle raiders may be behind the killing, there is a need to see an independent investigation and perpetrators held accountable because this trend where chiefs have been used as a weapon of punishing communities needs to stop.
“We have seen this trend before in Yei River County in the past period, which has now come to an end, and this needs to stop before it escalates into a big national issue where the lives of chiefs are taken rampantly for what purposes we don’t know,” he stated.
The Jonglei State Minister of Information, Elizabeth Nyadak John, confirmed to the No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper that the incident happened on Monday night while the chief was sleeping.
“Even though it is not the first time for them, I think it is not good to kill; they came at night, and they seemed to have entered his residence while he was sleeping,” Nyadak narrated.
However, she said the fight between Jonglei and Greater Pibor is not political but tribal because it existed before they were born.
Nyadak suggested that the government should disarm all the youths and deploy unified forces to both counties.
“This is one step that the government would take to deploy the unified force. After deploying unified forces, they will disarm all the youth, and the army will see who those criminals are going to attack, so this will be the only way because we want to save lives.”
Meanwhile, the Greater Pibor Administrative Area Minister of Information, Abraham Kelang, said they were shocked by the incident.
“We are surprised, and we condemn this act in totality, that our youth, even after we agreed that they should avoid violence,” He said.
“Since Greater Pibor Administrative Area Authorities learned about the news, they are waiting to apprehend the alleged youth and make them accountable for their actions.” He stated.
CEPO’s call upon the political leadership both at the national and state levels to respond to their appeal timely.