South Sudan activists arrested after call for uprising

South Sudan National Police Service officers sit on the back of a pickup truck while they gather ahead of patrolling the streets of Juba, South Sudan on April 9, 2020. PHOTO | AFP

Summary

• A coalition of civil society groups last week issued a declaration saying they have “had enough” after 10 years of independence marked by civil war, escalating insecurity, hunger and political instability.  

Government security agents in South Sudan on Monday arrested at least two prominent activists who joined a call for a peaceful public uprising to seek political change, one of their colleagues said.

A coalition of civil society groups last week issued a declaration saying they have “had enough” after 10 years of independence marked by civil war, escalating insecurity, hunger and political instability.  

Kuel Aguer Kuel, a former state governor, and renowned analyst Augustino Ting Mayai, were arrested in the capital Juba for signing the declaration, said Rajab Mohandis, another of the signatories.

The arrests came on the same day that hundreds of lawmakers were sworn in to a newly created national parliament, a key condition of a peace deal that ended South Sudan’s brutal civil war.

The Sudd Institute, an independent think tank involved in the coalition, has also been shut down and its executive director Abraham Awolich is among other activists also being sought by the authorities, Mohandis told AFP.

Awolich said in a separate statement on Twitter that he was on the run after the Sudd Institute was stormed and its staff arrested over Friday’s declaration by the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA).

Source: theeastafrican.co.ke