Police have arrested 44 gang members in the capital Juba after having fought and killed two members on Monday.
Speaking to reporters in Juba on Tuesday, Police Spokesperson Major General Daniel Justin said the officers swooped on the gang members after violent brawls In Lologo and Kosti neighborhoods that led to the killing of two teenagers.
“There were issues related to these young gangsters. They were involved in some insecurities where they used to fight each other. In Hai Kosti, they fought, and as a result, one boy was killed, and the same thing happened at Lologo, they fought, and one boy was also killed,” Justin explained.
According to the police spokesperson, after the incident, the gang members planned to launch a revenge attack, but because of cooperation between the organized forces and civilians, the police were called and planned the attack was foiled.
He revealed that during the operation, one police officer was injured.
“We managed to arrest 44 in total, 42 were members of a group called Wrong Gang, and they were fighting a group called Soldier Boys. There are many groups; there are Lock World, Rich Gang, and Star Boys. These are the groups we have already identified, and we know their places, but during this operation, we managed to arrest these 44 people. The investigation has now started, and now we are about to finish it,” he said.
The police seized machetes, knives, clubs, and lighters, clubs studded with nails, and an assortment of other crude weapons that the youth use to fight.
Gen. Justin appealed to parents to take good care of their children and prevent them from being involved in criminality.
“We are appealing to parents to play their roles. It is a very serious matter and some families do not know what their children are doing and they need to monitor them very closely,” he said. “We (police) have to complement each other with families because they are responsible when the children are at home, but when they are out on the streets; we (police) will take the responsibility.”
This is not the first time the Juba police arrested gang members. Last year, police carried out a similar raid in which nearly 60 gang members were arrested.