![Prominent South Sudanese journalist Adil Faris Mayat. [Photo courtesy]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/faris-847x565-1.jpg?resize=1000%2C400&quality=89&ssl=1)
Amira Al Nahawi, who is currently in Egypt, said her husband, a former director of the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) and a correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, disappeared on January 23.
“To people who know you and stay in Juba, Adil went missing since Thursday evening 23/1/2025 and according to my little knowledge he was taken to an unknown place,” Al Nahawi wrote in a social media Facebook post.
She urged law enforcement agencies, family, and friends to assist in locating her husband.
When contacted by Sudans Post, South Sudan police spokesman Colonel John Kassara Koang Nhial said he was unaware of Mayat’s disappearance but vowed to investigate.
“I’m not aware of his disappearance… I will try my level best to contact our officers in different police stations to confirm whether he’s having some personal problem in which maybe a case was opened against him or not,” Kassara said.
“If there was nothing of this kind at all, then I will also report back to you that he’s not in custody of the police,” he said today.
Mayat’s disappearance comes amid growing concern over the safety of journalists in South Sudan.
Emmanuel Monychol Akop, editor-in-chief of the Juba-based The Dawn newspaper, has been missing since his arrest by the National Security Service (NSS) in November 2024.
Patrick Oyet, president of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS), expressed concern over Monychol’s disappearance, noting that South Sudanese law requires that any arrested individual be brought before a court within 24 hours.
“At the moment we do not have any official information,” Oyet said in a statement extended to Sudans Post on January 25.
“What we have is informational information. His whereabouts are not known, and people only suspect that he is in the Blue House [NSS Internal Security Bureau (ISB)],” he added.
Monychol’s arrest has raised concerns about the unchecked powers of security operatives under the National Security Service Act 2014, which was amended this year to allow arrests without a warrant.
The NSS spokesperson, John David Kumuri, has not commented on the matter.
In July 2017, Mayath was detained by security agents for a week after he allegedly failed to broadcast a live speech by President Salva Kiir.
