The commissioner of Torit County in Eastern Equatoria State over the weekend gave the Haforiere community one week to hand over a suspect who killed a motorcyclist along the Torit Hiyala road last week.
Last week, a motorcyclist was killed and two other riders were injured in a road ambush at Idolu Bridge near the Haforiere junction while on their way from Lalanga village to Torit town.
Commissioner Atari Jacob Albano tasked the Haforiere youth and traditional authorities to apprehend the criminals responsible for the attacks and killing within seven days failing which security forces will be deployed to hunt him.
“The county is normal despite what happened on 25 August. The incident happened in the territory of Haforiere so there is nobody else responsible except the people of Haforiere,” he said. “So, we are tasking the youth of Haforiere to arrest and surrender the criminals who were involved in the killing. We are following it in that way and the monyiomiji said they are going to apprehend them so we are just giving them one week.”
“As the government, we shall not disclose our next plan,” he added.
Meanwhile, Galileo Ohide, the paramount chief in Hiyala Payam confirmed that the criminals are free within the communities and have threatened to kill anyone who attempts to arrest them. He called on the government to deploy security forces in the area to apprehend the suspected killers saying most of the criminals in the area possess firearms.
“This issue has been known since it happened that side of Haforiere and the sub-chief told me he was still communicating with monyiomiji and that the youth have not told him anything positives,” he said. “This issue is very clear and the criminals are threatening chiefs. If the chief points out the criminals, he will be killed so chiefs are now fearing. It needs government intervention. If the government intervenes, this issue will be solved.”
“If the government reaches the ground, the chief and the youth in the area will now have the power to point those involved in the killing,” he added.
On his part, Patrick Aiteng, the youth leader of Haforiere, said they are aware of the commissioner’s request to hand over the perpetrator, saying they are still investigating.
“The commissioner gave us the report that there is a person killed someone in the territory of Haforiere and we know about this case but we have not found the person responsible and we are still investigating,” he said. “The government also said it wants the community of Haforiere to end road ambushes. Such attacks are carried out by criminals whose intentions are different and we are urging our people to live in peace and I am sure that from today onwards nothing bad will happen again.”