The families of two senior officials allied to South Sudan’s opposition leader, Riek Machar say they were briefed by UN officials on Monday that Dong Samuel and Aggrey Idri Ezbon were killed in Luri in 2017.

Dong, a renowned South Sudanese human rights lawyer and activist, and Aggrey Idri Ezbon, a member of the opposition, disappeared from the Kenyan capital on 23 and 24 January 2017.

“Well they have confirmed actually that these people were killed in Luri, only that they are not sure where these people are buried or dumped. According to them they were killed on 30th January 2017, same month,” Dong’s relative Polit Gok Waar told Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday.

“I was there, with the family of Aggrey, one of them is among the UN panellists instructed by the UN Security Council who came up with a report, a team of five people. So one of them briefed us yesterday,” he added.

Aggreys’ relative who spoke on condition of anonymity also confirmed to Radio Tamazuj that they were briefed of the death of Aggrey but they can only respond once a report by the UN is released soon.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International last year said witnesses had seen both men in National Security Service (NSS) detention in Juba, on January 25 and 26, 2017.

In late 2018, a former detainee, William Endley, told the media that he had seen Aggrey and that others had confirmed seeing Dong at the prison in the NSS headquarters in Juba.

According to Endley, the two men were taken away from the Blue House in Juba on 27^th January 2017.

In January 17, 2019, a Kenyan High Court ended its 24-month oversight of the police investigation into the disappearances of Dong Samuel Luak, a prominent South Sudanese lawyer and human rights activist and Aggrey Idri, a member of the political opposition.

But South Sudan’s government has remained silent and failed to investigate these reports.

The UN Security Council is expected to deliberate on Sudan and South Sudan today.

The SPLM-IO’s director of information Puok Both Baluang said they will respond once a report is released.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said the government has no involvement in the fate of the two men, saying they disappeared in Kenya.