Kapoeta State youths are calling for massive awareness campaign on peace to end issues of cattle raiding; road ambushes and killings.
In a discussion organized by Radio Emmanuel with support from MANOS UNIDAS, the youths say local communities in villages are still adamant on the importance of peaceful coexistence.
During the roundtable, one of the youths Jerry Lokinei Loluai, says the communities in the rural areas are not informed about the importance of peace.
He says cattle raiding; road ambushes and killings are perpetrated by youth due to ignorance.
Lokinei calls for massive peace campaign to villages to end what he describes as “Unwanted bloodshed”.
‘There is need of creating awareness in order for them to know the importance of peace. We who are living in town know, we have no problem but those who are living in the villages they have the issue of cattle raiding but to let them to stop, it needs us to tell them the importance of peace, to forgive each another. When your brother was killed or something wrong was done to him, you forgive him in order to maintain the peace consistence’, says Lokinei.
He proposes inter-marriages amongst locals to reduce killings in the area.
He discourages the traditional attitude of praising crimes in communities.
‘As a youth, one of the things is to intermarry. If I marry from a different tribe, definitely we have become brothers because the message I will get from outside that is going to attack my in-law, I will inform people earlier and definitely no one will take the initiative of attacking someone or attacking the other community’.
Another youth Oburak James Allam says discrimination at work has led to unemployment, hence resulting to road ambushes due to poverty.
He calls for government intervention.
‘We should reconcile ourselves on the issue of tribalism, you will find even in the work place people are segregating themselves; this is of this tribe. This is the thing that kills all the youths. Youths are poor ambushing people on the roads. They are doing this because they are poor. We are urging the government to at least create job opportunities’.
As for Mary Khemisa, she says youth should be involved in sports activities like football to bring them together as the only way to stay in peace.
‘The thing which is making youths to be in peace, one thing is football. This is the thing which is making youths to stay peacefully’, says Khemisa
Another youth Oyo Jimmy Apollo sees improvement in the security situation, compared to the past because there is free movement of business people along the roads.
‘Now the thing I am seeing is youth are now staying peace. I am seeing youths from the other neighbourhood are bringing their cows to water points in our area. I am also seeing free movements. There are cars moving bringing their goods taking to other markets’
Jimmy urges fellow youth to maintain peace to experience development in the state.
While, Katiko County Chief, Joseph Lokitela, urges the youth to stop all forms of crimes.
He says road ambushes and killings are obstructing the most needed services from reaching villages.
‘The community youths and those in town should stay as one and maintain peace so that peace. There are youths who are doing bad things, they ambush cars on the roads and kill people, let the youths stop such things and stay in good way to maintain peace’.
In South Sudan, many young people have the will to participate in peace building, but often lack the capacity and resources to move forward.