Abducted children returned to Bor County

22 May 2015

Abducted children returned to Bor County

19 May 2015 - As part of continued efforts to achieve peace, it is vital for local authorities to ensure that abducted children and women as well as raided cattle are returned to their families and owners, the Greater Pibor Administrative Area chief said in Jonglei State’s Bor County today.

David Yau Yau was speaking at a ceremony during which he handed over four children aged between two and six years to county authorities. The children were abducted from Kulnyang payam in February 2014.

“Let us return what has been taken to the owners and the criminals should be penalized in accordance with the courts of law,” said Mr. Yau Yau. “I am very happy to be with my brothers and sisters in Jonglei. I have brought the children whom criminals took. We shall also make sure that we check any child that has been taken from here and is still there shall be brought back.”

Jonglei State Governor John Kong Nyuon said Mr. Yau Yau had shown a good gesture of peace and reconciliation in the state.

“Yau Yau made a good move because indeed he sees and brings the children who have been abducted so the community of Bor should know that signing of the peace deal between the government of South Sudan and Cobra (faction) is a real peace deal,” he said. “These are not the only children taken from Bor… The remaining children should be searched for. A criminal may hide some of these children in places that the government cannot find easily.”

Present at the ceremony was a parent, Thon Malual Garang Jok, who said he lost two children in early May in Langwar area of Bor town.

“The children were taken in my absence here at Langwar in Bor town,” said Mr. Jok. “They are not among these children who (have been) returned not by David Yau Yau. I do not surely know if I will find my children? I came to Bor County authority, but I am told they did not get the children.”

He appealed to the administration of Greater Pibor to do more to search for children and return them to their families.
Mary Akuch, an elder at the ceremony, praised the Greater Pibor administration for its actions and reiterated the call to find and return more children.

“I would request that the rest of people (who have) abducted children should return them,” she said. “I know that there are some children still remaining in Pibor.”