Boma State Governor Baba Medan has returned back to South Sudan’s capital Juba since Saturday after allegations that his militia precipitated clashes in Pibor town and looted from citizens and NGOs in the area, sources told Radio Tamazuj.
Compounds belonging to a number of international aid and development organizations were looted last week, including Doctors Without Borders, INTERSOS, Vétérinaires Sans Frontières and AECOM, Polish Humanitarian Action, Finnish Church Aid and UNOPS. Shops of dozens of traders were also looted.
A native of the area last week told Radio Tamazuj that the South Sudanese army and militia of Governor Baba Medan were responsible for the looting. Another witness said that the looters were wearing military uniform.
A third source said that “SPLA did most of the looting” while also blaming civilians, Baba Medan’s militia and perhaps also Cobra Faction soldiers who may have looted in the town as they were being driven out by force.
SPLA and Baba Medan’s militia have taken control of the town while Cobra Faction forces have withdrawn to outlying areas. Most of the civil population either fled to the bush or to the compound of the UN peacekeeping mission.
The Greater Pibor Area Administration (GPAA) had been governing Pibor under the terms of a 2013 peace deal between the Cobra Faction and the South Sudanese government, until President Salva Kiir declared the GPAA ‘defunct’ in December 2015.
Removing the Cobra Faction leader David Yau Yau, Kiir appointed as new governor of the area a Murle who does not belong to the Cobra Faction, Baba Medan. He also renamed the Greater Pibor Administrative Area ‘Boma State’.
Last month elements of the Cobra Faction threatened to block by force any attempt by Governor Baba Medan to take up his seat in the Boma State capital Pibor. Baba gathered a militia in his home area of Likuangole and sent them to Pibor, where they arrived on or about 24 February. Clashes broke out thereafter, with SPLA siding with Baba Medan’s militia.