The leadership of PoC 1 camp in the United Nations base in Juba resolved to form an emergency response team to prevent future violence after a weekend brawl left one person dead and more than one hundred wounded.
The group, called Community Emergency Management Team, or N4, includes 200 members from all sections of Eastern and Wester Nile Nuer, and are expected to remain neutral and respond to any violent incidents in the camp.
The team will patrol at night from 10:30 pm to 6:00 am, and anyone found loitering between those hours will be taken to the holding facility until morning. If that person is found with a harmful weapon like panga or knife, they will be beaten with 50 lashes and the weapon confiscated.
The group said they arrested four people last night, three of whom carried pangas. The fourth was going to the toilet.
Separately, John Chuol Gatmai, chairperson of a smaller Community Watch Group consisting of 68 members, took some of the blame for the violence last week which erupted among gamblers at a domino-hall.
Chuol said his group had referred the gamblers to the community center in the camp to solve their case but were too slow to contain the fighting.
“It was negligent from us that there was mess over the weekend,” he said. “We took them to the community centre and though they were convened…by the time we respond it was out of control.”
The fighting disrupted classes for primary and secondary schools, aid operations until yesterday. Sunday worship and cultural activities were also disrupted on Sunday.
Fights are common inside the cramped UN bases in South Sudan where nearly two hundred thousand people are sheltering for over two years.
Related:
110 injured in Juba PoC brawl; site now calm (21 Mar.)