Engineers serving with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) have completed the rehabilitation of two bridges along the Wau-Raja road in Western Bahr el Ghazal State.
The UN Mission is also working on a 40-kilometre road from Deim Zubeir to Raja town.
While visiting the project site over the weekend, Sam Muhumure, Head of the UNMISS field office in Wau, affirmed their commitment to work with the South Sudan government in addressing emergencies in the state.
“We came here with the UNMISS team to check on the progress made on the road repair between Deim Zubeir and Raja. That is the work that the UNMISS China Horizontal Mechanize Engineering Company (HMEC) wants to ensure that during the rains, Raja County is not cut off from the rest of Western Bahr el Ghazal,” said Muhumure.
“The Chinese HMEC has already completed the road segment from Deim Zubeir to Sopo and the remaining part from Sopo to Raja is what we will be focusing on in the coming weeks and our major focus will be critical shock points, the river cross and bridges,” he said.
Abdelrahman Abdelmajid, Chief of the Sopo area, expressed his gratitude to UNMISS for the road repair, including the maintenance of the Sopo bridges.
“The bridges are now better but still require some arrangement of culverts. I spoke to the commander working on the bridge, but he said some of the materials are yet to come from Wau, but the Sopo Bridge this year is better,” said Abdelmajid.
Daffarlla Futur, Acting Executive Director in Deim Zubeir payam, thanked UNMISS for its continued support to the citizens in the state and called for the repair of the road from Sopo to Raja town.
“I thank UNMISS for their work on the road from Deim Zubeir to Sopo. They have repaired Bili Bridge and Sopo, but Degetee is near Mangiaya with three portholes in critical condition. Let’s hope that their presence among us will help us with a water channel so that it does not become a problem,” said Futur.
The Wau-Raja road, which covers about 310 kilometres, is usually destroyed by heavy rains.