Northern Bahr el Ghazal State Information Minister Wek Kuch says that the state police commissioner has fled Aweil toward his home area after allegedly ordering politically-motivated police actions yesterday.
General Akot Deng Akot ordered the arrest of several chiefs in the area yesterday. They have since been released.
The information minister said he did not know how long exactly the chiefs were detained because of the security lockdown in the city yesterday. “I don’t know how many there were because people were not able to move yesterday.”
But he stressed that no charges had been made against the chiefs and he also accused General Akot of being behind the impeachment effort against the governor earlier this week as well as disturbing the peace of the city yesterday.
But after the intervention of the army’s Division 3 yesterday Akot Deng reportedly stood down his forces. He has since left the city.
“Akot is not currently in Aweil. He went to his home area of Gok Machar, he ran since yesterday,” said the minister.
“If he was here we would have found him, we were looking for him… we want to ask him why you did this,” he said, referring to the arrests of chiefs and the police roadblocks set up yesterday.
The spokesperson of the national police service in Juba could not be reached for comment.