Police in Jonglei State’s capital Bor have demolished an Episcopal church allegedly on the orders of a top ruling party official. Local pastors say the move is unfair and a “humiliation,” but they accept peacefully the fate of the church.
Antipas Nyok, the SPLM Secretary for Political Affairs & Mobilization at the national secretariat in Juba, claimed to own the land in Langbaar on which the church was built. He reportedly obtained a court order for demolition of the church under unclear circumstances.
Church leaders visited different authorities to ask them to stay the demolition, without success.
Peter Deng Arok, a pastor of the church that was demolished explained, “What we have done as church administration, we went to report it to the authorities concerned of Jonglei State. We went to the local government minister – we reported the case to him. Also to the speaker of the state, we went to him and reported the case. We went ot the comissioner of Bor County and reported the case.”
“Why we do so? We don’t want a conflict between the person [Antipas Nyok] and the church.”
The church was town down earlier this month, reportedly on 6 November.
According to the pastor, the church leaders decided not to organize youths for a protest against the demolition. “Church is a place of peace, this is why we held everything, we talked to our members not to do any action apart from what we have done, so we have just reported the case, this is what has happened, and it was done by Antipas Nyok, and Nyok is also a community elder and he is also a member of the SPLM.”
“So we don’t actually understand why he did that. Church is for everybody and when you demolish the church, that is humiliation,” Deng said.
The state police inspector general Ajang John said that they were just given the orders from the high court to destroy the church and would not refuse to do what he was told as a law enforcement unit.
“We were given the orders to destroy the church and we can’t refuse to destroy but even before that in September, the same person went to the court and he was given the letter to demolish the church but due to my powers, I gave the church two months to prepare and later when Nyok saw the church building still standing, he went to the Court, so I have to do so as per the court,” Ajang said.
Separately, Martha Nyaluak Deu, an archdeaconess of the church, said that the church was established in 2007 in block seven after a large number of refugees returned to Bor, creating the need for more churches. She was quoted by Gurtong news as saying that Antipas Nyok came to the church two months ago asking them to leave the premises as soon as possible claiming that the land belongs to him.
Since the church was demolished, some church members have begun attending another church elsewhere in Bor town while others have nowhere to worship, according to Pastor Deng.
He said some members are trekking to pray in their Marol Market branch which cost them a lot of money: “It is unfair because some of them go by boda-boda and you know things are hard here.”
“I am very sure they are not going all because of this thing. Some of them are old, some of them are children… so they can just stay there because of distance.” He said he hopes the church will open a new parish in place of the old one, but on different land, saying, “God will open another way.”
Meanwhile, the Bor County Commissioner Isaac Mamer Ruk has said that authorities will give the church another land to build on soon. He did not specify when his office will release the land.
File photo: Antipas Nyok