Ex-Malong spokesman claims rebel leader responsible for deadly highway attack

JUBA – A former military spokesman for the South Sudan United Front/Army (SSUF/A), led by General Paul Malong Awan Anei, has claimed that the rebel leader participated in yesterday’s deadly highway attack on a bus along the Juba-Nimule highway.

Yesterday, unidentified highway criminals attacked a bus, killing at least one person and wounding around eight others. The South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) quickly blamed the National Salvation Front (NAS) for the attack, which has been widely condemned on social media by citizens.

Army spokesman Major-General Lul Ruai Koang, who did not mention Malong as one of those complicit in the attack, said at least seven people were still missing and that the attackers set the bus, which was carrying people of different nationalities from East African countries, ablaze after the attack.

But in an email to Sudans Post last night, Colonel Philip Deng Kuol, a former military spokesman for the SSUF who defected to the South Sudanese government last year after abandoning Malong, said Malong, who he claimed had no soldiers, had hired six people to carry out the attack along with elements from the NAS.

“Today’s gruesome attack on a moving bus along the Juba-Nimule highway involved General Thomas Cirilo’s armed elements along with six armed men hired by General Paul Malong Awan from the Arua refugee camp with the aim of causing insecurity so that President Kiir would put the blame on the Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau (ISB) at the National Security Service (NSS), whom he always sees as his enemy,” he claimed, without providing evidence.

Deng also went on to blame General Malong for spending thousands of US dollars to disrupt traffic along the Juba-Nimule highway, which connects the world’s youngest country to East African nations, by hiring South Sudanese refugees from northern Uganda. One example he gave was the 2021 highway attack in which Catholic nuns were killed by unidentified assailants.

“Even the previous heinous attack that cost the lives of Catholic nuns a few years ago involved General Malong, where he also hired four men from the Arua refugee camp, each with $3,000 USD,” Deng claimed.

Malong had claimed in a statement in 2022 that the Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau (ISB) at the National Security Service (NSS), General Akol Koor Kuc, has deployed security operatives to cause insecurity along the Juba-Nimule highway by attacking civilian buses traveling between Juba and Uganda.

Deng claimed that Malong has tried for years to cause disagreements and distrust between General Akol and President Kiir and said that such actions will undermine the ongoing peace initiative spearheaded by the Kenyan government to bring nonsignatory opposition groups to the 2018 deal into the revitalized peace agreement.

“Take it from me as his former military spokesman, General Paul Malong, who is in exile, has been trying for years to create a standoff between His Excellency the President and our able Director-General of the Internal Security Bureau (ISB) at the National Security Service (NSS), General Akol Koor Kuc, but all his formulas have been failing. So, what does it mean if the holdout groups are still carrying out these live-costing cowardly attacks on civilians along the highways while the Nairobi Peace Talks are ongoing?” he asked.

“I know the holdout groups are not happy since the Presidency directed them to align with the updated 2018 peace agreement. But these deadly attacks by them are an anti-peace campaign while the government is very committed to searching for lasting peace in our war-torn country,” he concluded.

Attempts by Sudans Post to contact Malong’s group and NAS were unsuccessful at the time of writing as phone and emails went unattended to.