Members of a fact-finding committee have found that South Sudanese army (SPLA) troops killed civilians, burnt homes, looted shops and local government institutions and depopulated entire villages in attacks about a week ago in Central Equatoria State.
“It is totally disastrous,” said Episcopal Bishop Paul Yugusuk, a member of the fact-finding committee dispatched by the state governor to the affected area last week. “Number one, what we have seen, what you could feel is the fear.
The bishop added, “The other thing, we have seen the level of looting… you cannot imagine. The very army, looting their institutions, the police, the prison, the coordinator’s office.”
“You can see even the flag of Central Equatoria State has been brought down, has been torn,” said the bishop. “This is a total destruction. I don’t know what kind of heart do we have as South Sudanese?”
Abraham Wani, State Security Advisor and head of the investigative committee, told press that they found several villages were depopulated. “There was a problem that happened in Wonduruba area. In Wonduruba area there were clashes between our army and rebels. And citizens of Wonduruba fled from Wonduruba and went to Lainya area and ’45’ area,” he said.
The security official explained that the fact-finding committee left Juba on 17 September and arrived in Lainya where they interviewed people who had fled from Wonduruba. They proceeded to Wonduruba on the 18th where they found several hundred citizens and several chiefs including Paramount Chief Gordon Sasa, besides also the SPLM secretary and a Catholic priest. He said they also spoke to the SPLA troops in that area.
Abraham continued, “After we finished there yesterday, the 19th, we got up and went to the place where the clashes happened. This was the area of Mankaro and Mengele and Katigiri. We went to all of these places. In these areas really there are no citizens; we did not find citizens in Mankaro, Mengele, and we did not find citizens in Katigiri. Our forces [SPLA] are staying in those areas because rebels had come and carried out an attack on our army, left and went to the mountains. In those areas there are now only soldiers staying there. There are no villagers.”
They met only a few people in the affected villages. He said the executive chief of Mengele Payam came out to meet them when they arrived in the area.
“Also in Katigiri we found an old woman and another girl or woman who was wounded in the breast, whom we took to the hospital in Lainya.”
The security advisor noted that they found houses that had been burned, others that were looted and a clinic that was also ransacked. He recommended that civil authorities should return to the affected areas so that they can ensure that there are not more problems between the soldiers and citizens.
According to Bishop Paul Yugusuk, the violence against civilians in the area happened after a clash between SPLA and ‘gunmen’ in Mankaro area.
“After the signing of the Compromise Peace Agreement there was clashes between our SPLA forces and gunmen in Mankaro and this made the SPLA soldiers to be very angry, terrorizing and shooting the civilians in Wonduruba, in Mankaro, in Mangele, as well as in Katigiri,” he said.
“In all these places people were killed, thousands of people deserted the area. They are in bushes, in hiding, shops were looted, government institutions were broken – NGOs Zoa, Adra – all these NGOs, so there is a total mess that has been caused by army because of these clashes that happened in Mankaro,” the bishop stated. There are over 11,000 displaced people in Lainya alone and another 500 in Ganji, he said, besides people scattered “all over” the bush including women and children.
Yugusuk concluded, “We also wanted to talk to our government that this is high time to establish administration in this area so that it builds confidence between the army and the people. We also wantd to encourage our people to embark on peace and reconciliation. I know it is a very bad thing [that happened], but… we want to encourage the government to call on our people to come back to their places.”
Photo (above): An old woman is carried by police who had found her hiding under the bed in her house in Katigiri, Central Equatoria. These policemen who were accompanying a fact-finding committee ensured that she was taken to safety in Lainya. Most people had fled Katigiri and only a handful of other villagers were found there including a wounded girl and a contingent of SPLA soldiers. 19 September 2015.
Photos (below): Burnt houses in Katigiri (1), a wounded girl found in Katigiri is helped into a truck (2), a dead goat found in a house in Wonduruba (3), displaced villagers in Lainya (4-6), food is unloaded for IDPs in Lainya (7)