An official working for the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) was detained by security agents for three days before being released in South Sudan’s Aweil State, a legislator representing Maper Akot Aru constituency said.
Santino Mayuat Ngong, an MP in the state legislative assembly, told Radio Tamazuj that the relief official was accused of inciting over 1,000 women to protest against alleged unfair registration and delay of food distributions by the World Food Programme (WFP) in the state.
“Somebody called Deng Akol Ayii was caught by national security officials, the problem was connected with the recent demonstration” said Ngong.
“Hungary people or citizens went to Deng’s office to confirm whether their names were registered or not. So they said that Deng told them to go to the office of the governor and that’s why a lot of women came and surrounded the governor’s office, and when they were asked, they said they were told by Deng Ayii to come to the governor’s office in order to check their names and collect their ration cards” he explained.
The lawmaker pointed out that Deng was released after admitting his mistake, saying he was working under pressure, prompting him to send those people to the governor’s office.
The MP complained that local residents of his constituency didn’t receive food assistance being provided by the Wold Food Programme (WFP) in the area.
“The food distributed by the WFP has not reached Maper because those NGOs or WFP said that those people of Maper have become very dangerous people making noises, making demonstrations against the government and NGOs. So we are not in a position to give them food “he said.
“It is not actually the people of the whole constituency who didn’t receive food, but some parts of Maper East, Maper centre and Maper South, other areas like Maper West and Riang Makuei received their food” he added
For his part, Mustafa Abu Bakar, coordinator of the WFP airdrops in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, told Radio Tamazuj that they have not received any complaint on the matter.