The Committee to Protect Journalists or CPJ condemns the killing of the Business Weekly Corporate Newspaper reporter Moi Peter Julius in Juba on Wednesday.
Unidentified assailants in a car shot Moi twice in the back while the journalist was walking home from work in the Jebel Kujur area of the city at about 8 PM.
CPJ’s East Africa representative Tom Rhodes said “we condemn the senseless killing of Peter Julius Moi in what became a deadly year for journalists in South Sudan”.
He added that “more and more independent voices are being silenced in South Sudan at this critical time in the country’s history, when the public desperately needs impartial information.”
The Corporate Chief Executive Officer Otieno Ogeda and New Nation Editorial Consultant Kenneth Ouka told CPJ they could not identify any articles written by Moi in the publications that may have triggered the attack.
Chief Ogeda said none of Moi’s belongings such as phone and money were taken in the attack.
Journalists implemented media blackout for 24 hours in protest at the killing of Moi.
Five journalists were killed in direct relation to their work since the start of the year in South Sudan, making it one of the most deadly countries in 2015.
Earlier this week, President Salva Kiir threatened to kill journalists for reporting “against the country” as he departed for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to attend peace talks, according to news reports and a recording in CPJ’s possession.