The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Yei River County have called on government to fast-track the peace implementation process so that they can return to their locations.
The IDPs decry squalid living conditions and are now eager to head back to the locations out of desperation.
They have been camping at Episcopal Church of South Sudan Centre without adequate food and decent shelter. The displaced group is also appealing to humanitarian agencies in the country to come to their rescue from the state of desperation.
The Acting Executive Chief of Ombasi Buma in Yei, Michael Tan Jackson, said the displaced persons were in need of immediate intervention from both government and its humanitarian partners adding that the IDPs were also lacking medication.
Danger looms
He said as rain season intensifies, the conditions could worsen if no effort is taken to address their grievances.
“My message to non-governmental organizations and government as well is that they should at least help these people with food [and medication]. I am appealing to government to engage the holdout groups to stop fighting so the IDPs can go back to their respective homes,” Jackson said.
“We need peace because peace is a guarantee to this problem we are facing at the moment. Since then, we have been hearing about peace, peace and up to now, we don’t know where that peace is,” he stressed.
The boma chief expressed concerns that civilians’ properties were being looted and houses vandalised by both government and forces loyal to the holdout groups.
Jackson described the situation as deplorable adding that IDPs are sleeping in open space with hope that it never rains.
“Right now, as am speaking, we don’t know what to do tomorrow because these people have been washed by the rain and we wonder how they will survive here,” he lamented.
With little hope for assistance, Jackson raised alarm that the survival chances of the IDPs were shrinking adding that the government should consider ending the senseless conflict engulfing Central Equatoria State.
He said that the IDP centre was hosting over 1,500 displaced persons at ECSS compound lacking food, shelters and medicine.
“We have only few tents given to us by the church, getting food here is very difficult. The people here were given some assistance from the host community, the church and few well-wishers,” Jackson said.
The camp representative said the center cannot accommodate the large number of the IDPs revealing that majority sleep under small tents which are congested.
“There is no enough water, we have only one borehole which is shared by both the IDPs and the host community. Even the tens offered to us by the church are not enough. So, now we are putting the elderly men and male youth to sleep in one tent where the number is 50-100 plus,” he said.
“Yes, at night some of the people sleep in the open spaces and when it rains, they have no place to hide either,” he said.
According to Jackson the indigenous people from Modeba, Lata and Nyangiripa were forced out of their vicinity in March to Yei town, while some of them fled to DR Congo.