The newly appointed Lainya County Commissioner Augustino Kiri Gwolo says the community in his county has offered a piece of land for settling the people displaced from neighboring Wonduruba Payam, where SPLA troops allegedly targeted civilians forcing thousands to flee.

But the local official is also warning that the displaced civilians in Lainya lack food.

“The community here has offered land for the IDPs to be separated to avoid outbreak of diseases but we cannot take them to this place yet because it is raining and we do not have shelters,” Kiri told media in Lainya over the weekend.

People who fled from Wonduruba are sheltered in Lainya's churches, schools and among the local population, sometimes with as many as five families staying in one house. They share utensils with one family cooking first and then giving to the other family to cook later, he said.

He called on UN agencies to redouble efforts to help the IDPs adding that the UN agencies should come to Lainya so that they move to the areas in the bush to assess those hiding there to be able to get real figures for delivering assistance.

The commissioner said a local development organization has delivered some tents to the IDPs in Lainya but there are not enough for the thousands of affected people. Kiri added that the local organization donated tents, soap, and water buckets.

“The situation of the IDPs here is not good because since they came before I could take office till now we do not have any UN agencies or humanitarian agency that came on the ground to rescue these people or at least bring emergency humanitarian needs.”

The commissioner continued, “They lack shelter, they lack food. It is only the food that was mobilised by Central Equatoria State government plus some collections from the locals and business community. UN agencies only did assessment and went back.”

He said the food supplied by the state government was brought to cater for 5,000 people for ten days but the actual figure of displaced is closer to 12,000, adding that now the food is over. He was referring to food brought during a fact-finding visit by the Central Equatoria government last month.

File photo: Lainya County Commissioner Augustino Kiri Gwolo