By Kei Emmanuel Duku
A South Sudanese businessman, identified as Wani Alfred, was shot dead on Sunday evening between 8 and 9 pm at Kaguru Market in Palorinya Refugee Settlement in Obongi District.
Samuel Bimbaza Hashaka, Obongi District Resident Commissioner, said the deceased was shot along with a colleague who was injured and is currently receiving treatment in hospital.
Bmbaza stated that unknown gunmen, well-armed and traveling in a vehicle with South Sudan registration number plates, carried out the attack. Police have launched an investigation into the murder.
This is the second such incident in two weeks. Another South Sudanese refugee was killed in gun violence at Belamling Refugee Settlement in Obongi District.
“The preliminary findings reveal it is an internal wrangle among the refugees themselves which started way back home or other wrangles are business-related but Sunday incident we were told they armed and moving around on foot after shooting they jumped on an SSD registered vehicle, escaped through Lefori Sub County maybe back to South Sudan,” said Bimbaza.
However, Bimbaza blamed the incident on the refugees for the lack of timely information sharing with the relevant security organ within the district.
He said plans are underway to establish a standby response police force to curb the frequent killing of refugees in the camps.
“We are worried the way of the pattern we are seeing is alarming and it will not end soon but we are also having a big problem of information sharing with refugees, like what happened in Belamling instead of reporting to the Police, the refugees were going to the witchcraft thinking that they can easily apprehend criminals through witchcraft and up today they have got the killer. We are living in a scientific world where witchcraft does not work. What we need as security is timely information from the public,” added Bimbaza.
The Palorinya Refugee Settlement in Obongi District was established in December 2016 to host refugees from South Sudan. It was opened to reduce overcrowding at the Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. By the end of 2016, 25,212 South Sudanese refugees were received at Palorinya.
As of May 2018, there were approximately 166,000 people from South Sudan living in the settlement. Last year in June the population reduced to 124,632 according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).