A least five people were killed and several houses burned during clashes between government forces and armed men at Bisselia area in Wau County of South Sudan’s Western Bahr al Ghazal State, a senior opposition member said.
Peter Tingo, a member of the SPLM-IO advance team in Juba, told Radio Tamazuj that clashes erupted between their forces and an armed group stationed in Bisselia and Buseri areas to the west of Wau town.
“What happened is that there was a group of three soldiers riding motorcycles in Bisselia, when they arrived in the area of al-Daso, they met with innocent youths, so they stopped their motorcycles and ran after those youths,” he said.
“They shot at those youths, they shot two among them, after a short distance the opposition forces knew what happened and the clash repeated between them,” he added.
“There are casualties, they killed citizens and innocent youths, so this is what had happened, there is information that the three soldiers who were riding motorcycles were killed,” said Tingo.
Tingo said that two soldiers were killed from the opposition side.
The opposition member says that they had contacted the state government in Wau about alleged abuses perpetrated by government forces against citizens near Wau town. The forces are now out of control of the state government following its dissolution and replacement by a ‘Wau State’ governor, he said.
Meanwhile, a delegation of ceasefire monitors reportedly arrived in Western Bahr al Ghazal last week.
Speaking to press after meeting local authorities, Akram Hussein, the head of the visiting monitoring delegation, said they are carrying out visits to assess the progress in implementation of the signed peace agreement.
The delegation reportedly visited Momoye and Buseri areas on Wednesday and Thursday, but it is yet to disclose security reports on the two areas.
Hussein pointed out that they had visited to Western Bahr el Ghazal to monitor the ceasefire, while reiterating the stakeholders’ seriousness to respect the ceasefire.
“The two parties have been committed to the ceasefire agreement and they are now in a stage of implementation, in my personal opinion there is progress from time to time,” said Hussein.