Three people were yesterday shot dead during a combined land eviction exercise by the Juba County, Central Equatoria State government, and a national land committee formed by President Salva Kiir.
The incident happened on Wednesday morning in the Gabor area east of Juba city along the Juba-Bor highway.
Michael Chanjiek, the national minister of Housing, Land and Urban Development, during a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon sent his condolences to the families of the diseased and said the matter should not be politicized.
“There are certain elements behind our problems here in Juba, and there was a problem that occurred between a number of young cow herders and the security forces in the area,” Minister Chanjek said. “We are very sorry about what happened and we want to send our condolences to the families of the deceased people, the two government soldiers and one civilian who were killed.”
He added: “We also want to tell the people that this is not the way you settle in a place. This is not the right way. They were allocated a place to go and settle. I want to say that this issue should not be politicized, this is a government directive. This is the capital city and you cannot live in a capital city anyhow. So, I want to tell our people that they should follow procedures and respect the authority.”
Minister Chanjiek said the government came up with a directive long ago that no citizen should demarcate and or allocate land, “there is nothing like a chief demarcating and distributing land. It is illegal.”
He said that they were clear from the beginning that Gabor settlers west of the road Juba-Bor highway would not be registered but only those who are on the eastern side of the road.
“All the squatters there must move to the east of the road. This is what was agreed. For this issue not to happen again, the squatters have to move to the east of the road and we are coming back to enforce this issue tomorrow,” Minister Chanjeik said.
For his part, Central Equatoria State governor, Emmanuel Adil, cautioned citizens against taking the law into their hands said the security situation in the Gabor area east of the city was now normal.
“We want to inform the public that we are a law-abiding country, we do not want any citizen to take the law in their hands. The government will take the necessary steps to enforce the law,” Governor Adil said. “The security situation is normal and there is no cause for alarm regarding the situation in Gabor.”
He added that the state authority is not targeting anyone or a group of people but doing their work to make the city a better place.
“I have gathered from social media that there are challenges and that people have been targeted. It is not within our mandate to target any community or group of people because all our people are citizens of the Republic of South Sudan,” Governor Adil reassured. “What is important is that we need all citizens to abide by the law. We are not here to victimize anybody because we are doing our mandate and the work given to us by the president to see to it that land grabbing and informal settlements are solved both in Juba city and Juba County.”
Meanwhile, the Juba County commissioner, Charles Joseph Wani, said they are simply implementing the law and intend to organize the settlement of people.
“What happened today (Wednesday) was not from us and we are not happy with it but we went to implement the law and directives given to us,” Commissioner Wani said. “I want to tell all the citizens in Juba that they should not believe that the commissioner, governor, and the committee went to break down the houses of citizens of South Sudan. We do not intend to do that, we want to organize settlement and everybody should abide by the law.”