An ambulance was ambushed along the Kapoeta-Narus highway in Eastern Equatoria State and the occupants were robbed of medicines and money on Tuesday according to the local police.
The acting police commissioner in Kapoeta town, Brigadier General Garang Deng Jorkuch, said the attack happened a few kilometers outside the town and the assailants made off with a carton of assorted medicine and cash after beating the driver and a lone passenger.
“The ambulance was attacked between Naknak and Kapoeta. Money was taken, 470,000 SSP and USD 500 plus mobile phones and medicines,” Gen. Jorkuch said. “The driver is called Simon Lorik. I think they were taking the medicine to Narus.”
The police commissioner suspects that the robbery was coordinated by criminals inside Kapoeta town but said there was no active investigation ongoing because the police lacked transport.
“There is no investigation. The only vehicle we have is grounded, it crushed,” Gen. Jurkuch said. “These criminals are within the town. When they see a vehicle carrying valuable things like money, they communicate with some of their people in the bush to rob it. They (criminals) are within the town, not outside.”
He said the police will liaise with their stations in Narus, Ngauro, Torit, and other areas to get more information.
Lokwang Peter, an activist working for the Nyakireket Consortium, a peace-building organization in Kapoeta, condemned the robbery and said the perpetrators should be apprehended and taken to a court of law.
“I request all the parties involved in those wrong activities of looting people on the roads to stop and I strongly condemn them,” Lokwang said. “These people should be brought to book.”
Attempts to contact authorities at the state ministry of health, to which the attacked ambulance belongs, were futile.