A high ranking military officer within Division 7 of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army faction (SPLA-Juba) allied to General Salva Kiir said they launched a military offensive to retake Wadakona from the armed opposition forces allied to former vice president Riek Machar.

The SPLA’s Division 7 commander, Major General Akuai Yak, said in an interview on Monday that the SPLA is constitutionally mandated to serve and defend values, interests and sovereignty of the country.

“If you decided to not follow democratic means to get the power and seek violent means, we will not allow that as a national army. We do not see ourselves as tribes in SPLA. Our identity and tribe in SPLA is South Sudan. Because of this, it became necessary to provide security to the citizens of this country, especially our people of Northern Upper Nile in Renk town and its environs who have been subjected to constant bombarding and killing by the rebels of Riek Machar in spite of ceasefire,” Yak explained.

The SPLA-Juba officer claimed rebels had used Wadakona as a place where they were keeping heavy artilleries they have been given by a foreign government and used it a place for launching attacks on the positions of their forces in the area.   

Military and local sources in a series of interviews also confirmed that pro-government forces initiated the attack, under the command of Brigadier General Akwoc Mayong, also known as Awad-Jago.

They reportedly attacked opposition forces from the southern side of Wadakona while forces under command Maj. G Johannes Okic were advancing from the northern side.

Maj. General Oyuok Ogad and Maj. General Johnson Olony were coordinating and supervising delivery of military supplies from SPLA-Juba general headquarters in Juba through the sector II command headquarters in Malakal, he said.

Local sources claimed pro-government forces have been attacking opposition positions over the past days until they managed to take control of the town on Saturday at around 6:30 a.m. It was a dawn attack. The area was divided and each of these officers was assigned an area from which to launch attacks to take Wadokona. The sources said it was a weeklong operation.