SPLA-IO forces detain 4 aid workers near Wau

WAU, JUNE 8, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan’s main armed opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO) on Tuesday detained at least four humanitarian workers in Baggari Payam of Wau County in Western Bahr el Ghazal state.

Radio Tamazuj quotes Lina Ferdinand, the Chief Executive Officer for Women Training and Promotion (WATAP), as saying that she was among four workers detained at Baggari Payam by SPLA-IO on orders of the area commander she identified as General Benson Joseph.

“We have a construction through support from UNMISS’s Quick Impact Project in Ugali there, and while we were going for a monitoring visit, we were stopped in Bringi and taken to custody in Baggari under the order of an SPLA-IO field commander called General Benson Joseph,” she said.

Ferdinand said that she was kept by the SPLA-IO soldiers for two hours before being released after paying at least 250,000 South Sudanese Pound.

“When we were stopped in Bringi, they read a document that it was an arrest warrant issued against me, and there was no single crime I committed against them. The arrest warrant was issued by General Benson Joseph, saying I should be detained until he came and I should not be subjected to torture,” she said.

“I was detained for more than two hours till I was released after paying 250,000 SSP as 10 percent of the facility that we are constructing in the area.

“The way we were detained in Bringi was very bad. I was in a car when we were stopped and later called down one by one before four of us were taken to a cell in Baggari. I was treated like a crime because I was being questioned at gunpoint,” she added.