Leaders hail UPDF for crackdown on South Sudan gunmen

Summary:

• Residents and leaders in Yumbe District praise the UPDF for restoring peace along the Uganda-South Sudan border, enabling farming activities to resume. Despite ongoing challenges, including animal raids and border tensions, the UPDF’s presence has brought normalcy to affected communities.

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Residents and leaders in Yumbe District have hailed the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) for restoring sanity along the disputed Uganda-South Sudan Border in the West Nile sub-region.

Over the past years, residents along the disputed border areas of Uganda-South Sudan have grappled with invasions by armed assailants from South Sudan into Uganda, especially in Oraba Town Council in Koboko District and Kerwa, Kochi, Midigo Sub-Counties in Yumbe District which often results in looting of civilian property, abductions, raiding of cattle and killings.

Kassim Asiku, the Yumbe District Speaker, said the presence of the UPDF soldiers at the disputed border areas has enabled residents to resume activities like farming.

Abdulmutalib Asiku, the Yumbe LCV Chairperson commended the UPDF in the district for bringing normalcy to the areas of Kerwa, Kochi, and Midigo Sub-Counties.

According to Mathew Vuyaya Vuni, the Deputy Resident District Commissioner of Yumbe, the presence of the UPDF along the border has restored the livelihood of the affected community. He appealed to the South Sudan Government to prevail over the assailants to stop incursion into Uganda.

Lt Col Isaac Obong, the Commandant of the 69 Battalion in Yumbe, attributes the current sanity along the Uganda-South Sudan Border to the uninterrupted attention to security by the soldiers. He further assured the residents about UPDF’s commitment to maintain peace and security and stop the incursion of hostilities in the disputed areas.

Cases of animal raids by suspected armed South Sudanese gunmen have been rampant along the Uganda-South Sudan Border. In May 2023, suspected South Sudanese gunmen attacked Gwere North Parish in Lefori Sub County, Moyo District which is located about 8 kilometers inside Uganda, displacing an estimated over 3,000 people.

In 2019, the governments of South Sudan and Uganda formed a joint technical border committee to resolve border tensions between the neighboring countries.

The joint committee, which comprised 13 members from South Sudan and Uganda, was among others tasked with sensitizing the people living along the border and also acquiring the necessary equipment for demarcation, including colonial maps. However, five years later, the disputed borders have not been demarcated by the two East African countries.

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