Torit County Commissioner in Eastern Equatoria State, Jacob Atari, last Sunday visited Lafon County to address the problem of inter-communal conflicts between Lalanga and Mura-Hatiha villages.
He tells Radio Emmanuel that his purpose was to reconcile some conflicting villages to emphasize on peace in order for them to coexist peacefully with one another.
Atari notes that past conflicting history is resulting in fear among some villages within the county due to past killings and cattle raiding.
“Alanga is a village in Lopa/Lafon County, but sometimes they have conflict with an area from my county, which is Mura Hatitha, I went exactly to that place, it was a place call Ado, I happened to have a meeting with monyomiji, so it left for me know to go to Mura Hathiha to tell them message of peace from Lalanga so that to reconcile them one time with Mura Hatiha, between Mura Hatiha and Lalanga. It was both killing and cattle raiding which were happening last year, and it is something that has been happening those years, definitely because of that fear there is need for them to be brought together”, he explains.
The commissioner states that there was a need to reconcile the community of Lalanga and Mura-Hatiha as the two are not visiting one another.
He says fear has now forced the people of Lalanga to avoid using the road that connects their village to Torit via Mura-Hatiha resorting to Oming, Hiyala highway to Torit.
“It happens that these Mura Hatiha and Lalanga are not visiting each other, Lalanga are no longer using the road coming from their village to Torit via Mura Hatiha is already cut, instead they are using Lalanga, Oming-Hiyala road, that is one of the effects because of the fear, but we have not heard any revenge killing among the two villages, but there is need to cement their relationship so that Lalanga can use road crossing via Mura Hatiha o Torit”, Atari noted.
Torit County Commissioner calls for security maintenance and inter-county relationship to foster better trade among neighbouring villages.
“Let us have county relationships, where everybody can move anything that you want to take from Torit County to Lafon County because we have that batter trade among them, so that batter trade we need to encourage, so that we benefit from them, like some of those villages are not having millet, sorghum or durra so that they may bring their animals this side to buy that one is very important, we need to encourage let them to maintain security from both villages or counties, so that we have a very good relationship”, he appeals.
The commissioner made the statement to Radio Emmanuel on Wednesday at Torit Municipality.