A 20-year-old male resident of Jebel Lado Payam of Juba County in Central Equatoria State identified as Tombe Lawrence was shot dead by a land grabber on Thursday, authorities said.
Juba County Council Deputy Speaker David Pitia John accused senior army officers of orchestrating the well-planned land grabbing in the area and said the young man was sprayed with eight bullets with two of them hitting him in the chest.
“This is a group that wants to evict the people of Jebel Lado from their areas and we thank the local leaders in Jebel Lado for standing by the people,” he stated.
Pitia urged the local authorities in Jebel Lado Payam to hand over surveyed and allocated plots to their rightful owners.
For her part, Rachel Joseph Sule, the women’s representative in Jebel Lado Payam, explained that residents have continued to suffer from and endure perennial land grabbing and that two people have been killed as a result this year.
She said that many houses were burnt, most of the area’s residents driven out of their households to Jugi Island, and that many women are now widows after land grabbers killed their husbands.
“The reason for the displacement of children is the creation of insecurity in the areas, even schools were closed,” she stated. “We appealed to the national government for help with this problem but the government could not solve it.”
The women leader confirmed that most of the areas that were seized by grabbers have been surveyed and titled by the Central Equatoria State Ministry of Housing and Lands.
Jebel Lado Payam has been grappling with land grabbing for the last few years and the residents blame elements in the army and other armed forces for being behind the often violent vice.