Journalist recounts narrow escape from road ambush

JUBA – Bosco Bush of the No. 1 Citizen daily newspaper recounted how he and six other passengers barely survived a road ambush along the Yei-Juba Road in Mankaro area of Loka Boma, Lainya County of Central Equatoria State.

Scriber Bush left Juba to see his family in Yei two weeks ago, however, while returning back on Saturday their Premio car fell in an ambush – at gun muzzles they were dragged down from a car.

“I was enroute to Juba from Yei, after traveling a distance of over 20 miles – we fell in an ambush by armed men, in our car we were six onboard in Premio Toyota car,” he told Sudans Post.

A once happy trip now turns into a nightmare, as unknown armed men walked them to bush with their hand held up high – it was like a horror movie displayed in a real life, said Mr. Bush.

“Reaching a place called Mankaro around Loka area, there is this forest – So, those guys appear from the bush and stop us at gunpoint and tell driver to stop and told all of us to get out of the car,” he noted.

Bush said ‘There were four women and two children in that doomed Saturday’s incident’ which occurred at 11:00 am.

Worse yet to come, they were ordered to undress before being robbed.

“Getting our from the car, we were told to raise our hands up and they diverted us to bush,” he narrated.

“After moving 30 meters they told us to sit down – so, we sat down and they told us to remove our trousers and clothes- in which we started removing them with exception of women,” he added.

The No. 1 Citizen reporter, stated that he is in a traumatic condition, and it would be hard to erase what had happened in his mind, Bush also lamented of his work gadgets he lost which are hard to obtain.

“I am a walking died actually and I am a bit traumatic to recover from this situation,” he lamented.

He cited that they left their belonging in the car, and some elements of armed men to their belongings, including money, laptop, smart phones before another car, a Tipper fall in the trap too.

“They tell other group to stop that car, it was instantly stopped and they did the same things they did to us and they were brought to join us – approximately 6 people,” he said.

“We started moving inside the bush, they took us in a distance of about 40 minutes, barefooted remember all our clothes and shoes were removed [only left with underwears] when reach another stage they told us to sit down,” he added.

To journalist Bush, the unknown gunmen informed them to continue with a journey before a sound of gunshot deafened their ears – that was a turning point as they were to run for their dear life.

“They told us to move again; after moving a distance we heard some gunshots from behind,” he recalled.

“When they heard the shooting, they told us to scatter, everyone should run now. So started running than we stopped each other and said let go slowly, slowly,” Bush explained.

Scriber cited that at first, he thought armed men might have started killing hostages who were behind the line – since he was in the middle of a long line marching silence forest.

“For me, when I heard the bullet, I thought maybe the armed men have started shooting some of the hostages who were behind because I was in the middle,” he said.

“Where we were robbed there were some nearby barracks of the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF), I think they got that information and they start shooting in the air,” he explained.

Bush said when he reached back the main road, he borrowed trousers before a boda-boda rider drop him to Lainya – where he met commissioner and head of security and narrated what happened.

He added that the army forces in Loka were immediately alert and they went to incident scene.

Bush called on those unknown gunmen to stop attacking civilians along the roads. He also appealed to the government to bring on board holdout groups through Tumaini so that recurring road attack might cease.