Heavy rains in Raja County of South Sudan’s Western Bahr el Ghazal State have rendered several roads impassable. The worst affected road is the Raja-Sudan road.
Ramadan Sishar, one of the stranded drivers, told Radio Tamazuj on Friday that several sections of the Raja-Sudan road have become impassable, leaving several trucks carrying goods stuck for days.
“The road from Raja to neighbouring Sudan is very bad; all the bridges have broken down. The trucks that left Girinti in Wau recently, six of them stranded along the road, they failed to reach Raja,” Ramadan said.
The driver called on the government to fast track rehabilitation of the roads cut off by heavy rains saying Raja residents are suffering.
Another driver, Mohammed Abakar said: “The road from Wau to Raja is impassable, there are some trucks that have broken down on the road and there are some trucks that got stranded,” he said.
For his part, Raja County Commissioner Salah Mameji confirmed that several bridges along the Raja-Sudan have been affected by rains, making it hard for commercial trucks to cross into South Sudan through Raga road.
“We are facing a lot of problems; goods come to Raga through Wau. Commercial trucks carrying goods from Khartoum and al-Obeid pass through Wau first before they could reach Raja,” Salah said.
“We are only relying on one way which is from Wau to Raga because there is a problem with eight bridges. The Raja Bridge which was contracted in 1956 is likely to collapse, we are afraid when it collapses, the whole area will be completely cut off from the state capital,” he added.
The local official called on the state government to seek the national government’s intervention so that key bridges are repaired as soon as possible.