At least two shooting incidents in South Sudan’s capital Juba on Monday sparked fears among the population as authorities declined to explain what had happened.
In the first incident on Monday afternoon, a group of soldiers from the ‘Giyada’ SPLA base argued with police at Malakia Police Station after the police administration refused to release several of their colleagues who were arrested the previous night on suspicion of robbery.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj, an eyewitness who works near the police station explained that the armed soldiers came and demanded the police officer in charge of the unit to release their colleagues immediately.
The source said that the police administration refused to release any of the persons in their custody and consequently at least one of the SPLA soldiers opened fire in the air. Although no one was hurt or killed in the incident, nearby shopkeepers closed their shops in fear, according to the source.
Contradicting this, a police source told Radio Tamazuj that two people were killed inside the Malakia police station. He said the perpetrator shot dead two people and walked away without being arrested.
Another local resident confirmed to Radio Tamazuj that he saw armed men wearing military uniforms arrive in one vehicle and enter the Malakia station before opening fire. A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior declined to comment on the development.
Hai Cinema shooting
Separately, at least two people were shot in another incident later in the afternoon in the Hai Cinema neighborhood of Juba. Sources were not clear as to whether the two were killed or merely wounded, or why they were shot.
“We heard several gunshots and everyone ran to safety… some people came out of their shops and later I saw the police coming with pickups and two people, I think they are Ethiopians, they were taken to the hospital,” said Mabior, a witness.
The shooting occurred near Quality Hotel. One source said the Ethiopian or Eritrean nationals had been seated near a storage building under construction near the hotel. It is not yet clear whether they were targeted or shot accidentally. The gunshots were heard at about 4:30 p.m. and stretched for more than 10 minutes with some intervals in between.
In the aftermath, there was traffic jam on the road all the way from the Central Equatoria police headquarters to Juba Grand Hotel to Quality Hotel as some vehicles had been left stranded in the road by drivers who had fled and police pickups arrived on the scene.
Police officers refused to comment on what had happened.
The shooters were not apprehended. Some bystanders speculated that they had gone inside a nearby building because the time between the shooting and the arrival of police was short, which would have made it difficult for them to escape.
Meanwhile, an eyewitness told Radio Tamazuj that he had seen a lot of soldiers in pickup trucks pulling up to Quality Hotel on Sunday, the night before the shooting. It was not clear whether this was connected to the shooting today or not.
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