The Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Yei, Levi Marandulu Yepete is calling on soldiers deployed to bring peace and cooperate with the local community.
The Church leader was speaking after soldiers were deployed in the Rubeke sub-Boma of Otogo Payam in Yei River County.
This came during a three-day dialogue organized by community empowerment for progress organization CEPO in the area.
Last year an incident happened in Rubeke that involved killing between soldiers and the civil population in the area. The Bishop says people want peace in the County and South Sudan.
He says citizens are tired of the killings, displacement, and all the bad things that happen to the civil population.
“There is no soldier who doesn’t want civilians and no one doesn’t want soldiers because they protect the citizens and civilians give them food. Anyone who has a gun always needs civilians, even our brothers we called rebels still need people.”
The relationship between the two is very important and for that reason, we need to have good relations with our soldiers,” said Bishop Yepete.
Bishop Levi tells the commanders of the SSPDF to denounce violence against civilians.
The ECSS prelate advises the civil population to forgive one another and denounce violence. He encourages civilians to focus on agriculture to produce enough food for themselves.
A United Nations report published in 2017 released the findings of an in-depth investigation into human rights violations and abuses committed in Yei town.
The report exposes cases of indiscriminate shelling of civilians; targeted killings; looting and burning of civilian property and cases of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls, including those fleeing fighting in 2016.