A humanitarian convoy consisting of five trucks destined for the Luachjang area in Tonj East County was ambushed and looted last week by armed youth at Langchok locality in the now-defunct Thiik County.
John Wiel an employee of the World Food Programme (WFP) in the area said the trucks were carrying cereal and vegetable oil totaling 42 metric tons and were ambushed before reaching their final destination.
"There were five vehicles carrying vegetable oil and cereals. The total metric tons looted is 42.707 tons, 2.927 matrix tons is vegetable oil and 39.78 is cereal. The vehicles were destined to Paliang and they did not reach Paliang, they were looted before reaching Paliang,” Wiel said.
He said the trucks and drivers were released after the cargo was robbed and that both the trucks and drivers were safe.
The Executive Director of the defunct Thiik County, Luka Marial, confirmed that five trucks carrying humanitarian food were looted in the county.
Marial said the youth raided the trucks as a retaliation to the looting of a vehicle at the Luachjang area earlier saying it was carrying food to the Thiik area but was looted by people from the Luachjang community.
According to Marial, this triggered anger among the youth of the Thiik community which resulted in the looting of food meant for their adversaries.
“The vehicles were going to Romic. Before that, one vehicle that was destined to the Thiik area was looted by people from Romic,” Marial explained. “The current looting carried out by the people of Langchok is revenge for the looting of a vehicle that was looted while going to their area. There was food coming to Thiik here, but people of Romic looted it and that is why people of Thiik looted food going to Luach.”
He indicated that the attack on and looting of the humanitarian convoy was an act of revenge and a means to prevent food from reaching the Luachjang area because the Thiik and Luachjang communities are embroiled in a bitter conflict.
Mabior Adel, the Executive Director of Romic, denied knowledge of the incident and claimed that the movement of commercial vehicles destined for the Thiik area was concealed since clashes occurred between the two communities.
“The truck was a business truck hired by an organization to take some food items to Thiik area from Romic and that day coincided with the day people were shot in a vehicle coming from Wau at Apuk Padoc area,” Adel emphasized. “That day, the owner of the vehicle called the driver directing him not to move again with the vehicle to any area because of insecurity on the roads, and so the driver who had loaded the vehicle returned the food items to the store. Never has any vehicle going to Thiik area been looted, never.”