Cattle keepers in Uganda’s Moyo district are threatening to sue South Sudan’s Yei River State authorities for failure to recover over 2,000 herds of cattle raided by armed men who crossed into Moyo villages from Kajo-Keji County in November 2018.
Moyo LC 5 district chairman, Anyama Williams told Radio Tamazuj Saturday that his office has recorded several complaints raised by the cattle keepers, but failed to get any feedback from Yei River State government despite several attempts to consider recovering the raided cattle.
He said the cattle keepers in Moyo are engaging lawyers to ensure quick access to justice and accountability over raided cattle.
“Over 2,000 herds of cattle were raided by heavily armed men from South Sudan and we held meetings with Yei River state government. Unfortunately no cattle was recovered,” said Anyama.
He added, “We reported this issue to the Uganda government and directly to the president. There are options of dragging the government of Yei and Uganda to battle this case through court”.
On his part, Yei River State governor, Emmanuel Adil Anthony acknowledged receiving complaints from Moyo district authorities, adding that he obtained reports that unidentified armed men from Kajo-Keji County crossed into Uganda and raided cattle from Moyo.
Adil, however, said they could not investigate who raided cattle from Moyo district due to insecurity at its porous borders last year.
“This challenge of cattle theft is not in the interest of Yei River State government or Uganda. For us, we consider it a crime. Both of us should identify who are these groups of people or criminal individuals tempered with the wealth of the people of Moyo. We need to deal with this act as a crime on our common borders,” he stressed.