Alfred Nimeri is left with a wince on his face when he remembers the scene of the bulldozer crashing down buildings at a custom market in Juba when the former Mayor Kalisto Lado ordered a restructuring of the city markets.

He lives to curse the sounds of iron sheets tumbling down, and the dusty scene that left him jobless when the small kiosk that earned him a living turned into ruins.

Nimeri narrates to The City Review that since his kiosk was demolished during the exercise; he has been lacking the finances to erect a new structure to continue with his phone charging business in the custom market.

“The kiosk that has been sustaining me, charging phones and selling other things was destroyed by the Mayor. Since then, my life has not been good as before. He destroyed all the iron sheets and timbers, he has destroyed everything completely,” he complained.

“This has made my life so difficult, even going for medication is very difficult for me, to get food is very difficult for me, so things are completely not easy. I don’t know what kind of life is this that we the persons with disabilities are living.”

Nimeri argues they were not accorded the deserved respect as persons with disabilities and entirely the vulnerable persons however much they pleaded.

“The UN convention says that the rights of persons with disabilities should be respected but our rights are not respected in this country,” he says.

He reveals that they were promised to be allotted pieces of land but nothing has so far come to their rescue.

“I only heard that there is a place in custom that was built by another company and it is not finished. I cannot also go and get a place like other people because I cannot make it to run here and there,” he laments.

According to Nimeri, they are yet to be given the place officially and due to the change of guard at the Juba City Council, it is even hard to tell what the new mayor Michael Alla-Jabu has in store to remedy the issue.

“I appeal to our government not to mistreat persons with disabilities. The government should first be carrying out an assessment before taking action because the market has people who are vulnerable as well,” he added.

“We are people of this country because when the time comes for voting, we shall vote for the leaders. Why is the government abandoning us like that? If there could be a spare part of the leg, of hand, of eyes, we could sell all our properties, then we can go and buy the spare part instead of just continuing with life like this.”

He suggests that persons living with disability should be trained in various fields so that they can provide for themselves and their families.

Demolitions

The former Mayor of Juba City Council Kalisto Lado announced the restructuring of Juba through the demolition of structures constructed along the road to widen roads and avoid congestion as part of the campaign dubbed “Keep Juba City Clean and Green Project.”

The project was implemented in Gudele, Hai Thoura, and Customs Markets among other areas. Kalisto vowed not to compensate anyone whose kiosk was destroyed in a land meant for the road claiming that such people were not law-abiding.

He however indicated that the City Council was planning to allot pieces of land for the markets and that it was where victims of demolitions would benefit as he added that the plight of traders was his concern.

“There is no compensation for anybody who builds along the road, or for anybody who illegally occupies a piece of land that is not his or hers. In our policy and our strategic plan, we are expanding the market and creating more markets for our traders. So, all our traders who lack shops or land for the construction of their shops will have pieces of land,” he explained.