The Spokesperson of South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF), Maj Gen Lul Ruai has rubbished the statement from the SPLA-IO that the national army was attacking the opposition forces under the military command of a county commissioner in Koch.

Lul said armed clashes were such a routine practice by the SPLA-IO that whenever someone defected from them, they resort to attacks.

Speaking exclusively to The City Review, Lul suspected that the pioneers of the clashes were defected SPLA-IO forces that had joined the Simon Gatwech-led faction.

Lul confirmed the attack but stressed that the SSPDF forces were not commanded by the commissioner adding that the national army has no presence in Koch County.

“The commissioner of Koch County does not have forces under his command; we don’t have our forces that are being commanded by the commissioner,” Lul said.

“We have our regular commander who commands our troops. So, in the first place, the accusation on that basis that our commissioner ordered forces to attack them is not true because, we don’t have forces at Mirmir, our forces are in Leer,” Maj Gen Lul added.

The Spokesperson classified the forces that clashed and overran Mirmir as SPLA-IO forces that defected to the Kit Gwang faction and were backed up by armed civilians in the area.

Maj. Gen. Lul also said that the Kitgwang forces were part of SSPDF because the integration has not been done since the signing of the agreement.

Last month, a security committee from Kitgwang arrived in Juba but were yet to be part of the SSPDF, since the formation of the joint security committee for the implementation of the Khartoum Peace Agreement was expected within three months.

“This one has been going on now for about two months. Sometimes back then there were armed civilians that were arrested by SPLA-IO. Sometimes, back at Mirmir in Koch County, there was a disagreement between the SPLA-IO. They went around arresting civilians, and you know, most of the communities in that area are heavily armed,” he noted.

He added: “Yes, we are implementing an agreement with Kit Gwang, but they are not yet part of us because the process of reintegrating them to SSPDF is supposed to take three months.”

Maj. Gen. Lul was responding to a statement from the SPLA-IO Spokesperson, Col. Lam Pau Gabriel, who accused the national army of ‘waging a proxy war’.