Seven people, including two women and a minor, were on Wednesday shot dead in separate incidents in the Camp 15 area of Loryok Payam, Budi County, in Eastern Equatoria State, officials said.
A woman, her child, and her nephew were killed in a gold mining area while the other four were ambushed at the junction between of Chuckudum and Kideopo.
On Monday, Kapoeta South County Acting Commissioner Juma Justin said three gold miners were gunned down in the Lowering area by bandits suspected to be Buya youth.
Local authorities in camp 15 now say the suspect that Toposa youth carried out Wednesday’s killings as revenge for the murders that happened on Monday.
Oreste Lopara, an SPLM-IO lawmaker in the national assembly, confirmed the Wednesday killings and said quick intervention is needed to avoid tensions and cyclic assassinations.
“A mother, her child, and nephew were killed first and four more people were killed later on the same Wednesday bringing the total of those killed in separate incidents to seven. The four people were moving from Kideopo to Camp 15 but they were killed on the way,” he said. “The Toposa at times come and raid cattle from the place where the killings occurred. This is a very critical issue and we need to understand the motive. These women are just struggling to survive by mining gold and the other group who got killed were just on their way to camp 15.”
“The issue requires a very urgent meeting between the stakeholders, especially the government and the local communities, to find a solution otherwise people will become hostile,” Lopara added.
Mohamed Lohidori, the boma chief of Camp 15, confirmed the murders and attributed them to revenge.
“This revenge is not good because someone kills another and the people who revenge target people who are not even related to the murderer,” he said. “It will cause confusion and recurring murders because everyone will want to revenge.
Meanwhile, Angelo Lomoi, an SPLM legislator who represents Budi County in the state assembly and hails from the Camp 15 area condemned the killings and said it would affect the livelihoods of the women involved in gold mining.
“These people, especially women and children, have been surviving through mining and the continued murders will affect their economic activities. I will be talking to the people and will go to the mining places tomorrow and make sure that this retaliation stops,” he said. “If they want to retaliate, let them do it in the bushes where the cows are and not bring it to the gold mining places. We blame the Buya boy who went killed people on Monday in the gold mines. He should have gone to the bush where the cattle are because the issue was that some people were trying to steal cows but unfortunately, they killed one boy and that is what caused all this.”
“My message to all the people is that they should cease these senseless revenge killings and let the government bring the criminals to book,” Lomoi added.
According to the acting commissioner of Kapoeta South County, Juma Justin, the recurrent slayings have discouraged people from mining gold. He said he had unofficially heard about the killings on Wednesday but could not confirm if it was true.
“I heard this information from ordinary people but not officially,” he said. “However I cannot rule out revenge attacks.”