At least 10 heavily armed youths were arrested on suspicion of highway robbery and looting in the Khor Machi area of Kapoeta South County in Eastern Equatoria State on Wednesday.
Governor Louis Lobong’s press secretary, Aliandro Lotok, said the arrests came after his boss issued a directive to all county commissioners to curb insecurity across the state.
“There are many people who were arrested during this operation but after preliminary investigations, some of them were released,” Lotok said. “There are now 10 in police custody and these are the people who will be presented in court to answer for the crimes they have committed. Even a PKM (machine gun) was found among a number of firearms.”
“Laptops of humanitarian agencies such as Plan International were found because they were looted along the road. This is bad and the government is working to arrest all the criminals in order to make the roads safe,” he added.
Lotok said the state government has put the security forces on high alert to crack down on criminals along the highways and encouraged the local population to cooperate with authorities to end criminality.
Juma Justine, the executive director in Kapoeta South County confirmed the arrests.
“The government has arrested everyone who was causing problems along the roads and the law will separate them and determine those who are guilty,” Juma said. “The law is now working. They were about 14 or 15 armed youth arrested but the innocent ones were released. The perpetrators will face the law.”
According to Justine,” The biggest and recent problem they did is the looting of a humanitarian vehicle belonging to plan international three vehicles they took the money, computers of these people we knew who are these criminals that is why we hunted for them at last we arrested them they have been brought to face the law”.