CEPO: Communal violence, cattle rustling and revenge attacks claiming precious lives
3 min readPress Release: The intractable problem of communal violence, cattle rustling, and revenge attacks is claiming lives in the Republic of South Sudan
April 24, 2018 (SSB) — H.E. President Salva Kiir has warned the citizens against revenge attacks and killing. He says this is destroying the unity that people of South Sudan had during the liberation struggle. Hundreds of people have been killed in revenge attacks in parts of the country due to inter-communal and inter-clan conflicts.
That is not the good way of staying together. Community Empowerment for Progress Organization welcomes the statement of the H.E. the President. It is remarkable and encouraging. Time has come to stop silence on lose of civilians lives and properties due to communal violence which is taking the full scale of identity-based violence crimes.
Mr. Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of CEPO is honorably urging H.E. President for the pro-active role on prevention of communal violence before it takes the full scale of identity-based violence among clans of our communities. The trend of the communal violence among our communities is on raise weekly. It requires urgent action although the nation is facing political difficulties.
Per our on-going survey on 2013-2017 communal violence that will be completed by May 2018 shows disturbing information. Some of our political elites are using inter-communal violence as a means of accessing political power or pushing for the political leadership change. This is totally unacceptable and shameful.
Your Excellency President, in honorable, National strategy on prevention of communal violence is required in our country. South Sudan weekly is losing between 3-6 human lives due to communal violence namely cattle raiding, political administration tension and revenge attacks.
Some of these communal violence’s are at the scale of identity-based violence/crime against humanity. The regions of Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile are serious facing unaccepted communal violence and still the national is silent about that. Mr. Yakani stressed
CEPO is strongly calling H.E. President, to constitute a body for development of the national strategy on prevention of communal violence. The on-going political and armed violence are somehow strengthened by the on-going communal violence silence is the observation of silence about the ongoing communal violence.
Some politicians pick up the state silence on the communal violence are a factor of justifying a wage of war in the country. CEPO is ready to partner with the state on development of the national strategy on prevention of communal violence.
“The Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) is a non-profit, civil society, South Sudanese organization, registered by the Ministry of Justice on 17th November 2010. The organization was initially formed in Khartoum in 1999 and consisted of mostly University students, but its scope broadened after it was established in Juba, Southern Sudan as a separate entity. Presently, CEPO is engaged in the areas of Peace and conflict mitigation, human rights, rule of law, livelihood, governance and democratic transformation. MR. EDMUND YAKANI BERIZILIOUS is the Executive Director of CEPO.”
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