A Kajo-Keji member of the Central Equatoria State Parliament Jacob Kwiyansuk said there have been two road attacks in the last week in his county resulting in five deaths.
In the first incident, gunmen wearing both civilian and military clothes ambushed a vehicle carrying three people. The three people were stripped and tied down in the bushes, but the attackers fled when another car drove by, allowing the captives to escape.
In the second, the same gunmen removed two women and three men from a car and shot them dead at 10 am on Monday, the MP said.
Jacob said he is concerned with the rising violence and said the government has not taken concrete steps to solve the matter.
He said the former Central Equatoria governor raised this issue with the government who promised to provide security for travellers, but there has been no result so far.
“They wanted to make sure that the insurgencies–whether they are insurgencies or rebels or gang of people who have taken arms to destabilize the state–would be found and pushed out,” he said. “This has not happened.”
The MP said the continued presence of armed cattle keepers from other states is part of the problem.
“The cattle keepers were ordered to leave by the president nothing happended,” he said. “They are well armed and we do not know what they are doing…we cannot know exactly now who is the enemy of the people because those people are well armed and they are both in uniform and not in uniform.”
He noted there are large cattle camps the size of a payam in Lainya and in Ngepo and Liwolo payams.
“The cattle keepers are the same: both dressed in uniform and non-uniform,” he stressed.
The MP questioned how leaders could move to the rural areas to pass messages of peace to the people if attacks block the main roads.