State governors and national MPs visiting Wau town have called for calm and vowed justice for the crimes committed lately in Western Bahr el Ghazal state amid fears that prevailing tensions could turn into tribal conflict.
A fact-finding committee from the national assembly headed by Hon. David Aguir Akuey arrived on Monday in Wau and met the following morning with the state council of ministers as well as visiting officials from Warrap state to the north.
Eyewitnesses from Wau town told Radio Tamazuj that large number of citizens from Warrap and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal states gathered on the eastern bank of Wau on Tuesday.
It was feared that members of these communities were planning to attack the Wau County communities whom they blamed for being behind the latest incident, the discovery of six dead bodies identified to be from those two states.
“The government wants from the other communities of greater Bahr El Ghazal to stay calm,” the government stated in a press release dated Monday.
Nyandeng Malek, the visiting governor of Warrap state, addressed the crowds asking them to be calm and law-abiding.
“Nyandeng called on her people to be calm for the government of WBGS will handle all this issue and justice will be done,” the WBG state government said in a separate press release on Tuesday.
In the same context, Governor Rizik Zacharia Hassan disclosed the capture of 29 suspects saying they are still under investigation.
“I am reiterating the commitment of the government in conducting the necessary measures in maintaining the state security,” said Rizik.
The governor in remarks to the visiting fact-finding committee also gave a “full briefing about the deceased which were found in Farajalla area being slaughtered that this incident occurred” sometime between Saturday and Sunday the 8th to 9th December.
“The Government is ready to find out why this happened and it has managed to apprehend some people who are related to the incidents in the area so the law will take its course at the end of the day,” the governor’s office said in a press statement.
Photo by Radio Tamazuj: Warrap State Governor Nyandeng Malek speaks in Wau, 18 December 2012.