GPAA chief bans cattle trade over insecurity

Greater Pibor Administrative Area Chief, Lokali Amea, has issued an order barring cattle keepers from selling their animals due to insecurity.

“We have stopped some of these traders from taking their cattle to the market until we come up with a date for them to travel,” Lokali Amea, Chief Administrator of Greater Pibor Administrative Area told The City Review on phone interview on Monday.

Amea said his administration would meet with the military to arrange an escort for the traders to avert highway killings.

“I don’t have any other alternative and I have informed the youth to wait although I don’t know for how long.  I am trying to control the death and killings among the youth from Bor and Pibor,” he said.   

Last week on Tuesday, the media reported that at least three cattle traders were killed and several others wounded during a cattle raid along the Pibor ̶ Juba road.

Greater Pibor Administrative Area (GPAA) Minister of Information, Jay Adingora Alual, confirmed that one person was injured while 71 others are still missing.

However, according to an eyewitness, John Koju, who was quoted by the Insider news agency, the traders were moving about 2,100 herds of cattle to Juba to trade them for other goods ahead of the Christmas festival when they were attacked by a group of young people who Koju believes were from Bor Town. 

“These traders came this morning from Pibor and were heading to Juba to sell and buy their things here in Juba. When they reached Jabor this morning at six o’clock, they were attacked on the road, ” Koju said. 

“Their cattle were taken. Some were killed, and the rest were scattered into the bush,’’ he added.

Adingora blamed the traders for taking a shortcut through the desert to reach the Maggeri Cattle Market in Central Equatoria. But before they reached their destination, they were attacked in Jabour.