May 3rd 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) denied on Thursday that a statement by the group’s leader, Dr. Riek Machar Teny was aimed at threatening Kenyans in the country over the death of two prominent members.
On Tuesday, a United Nations panel of investigators said in a report that two opposition members, Dong Samuel Luak, a human rights lawyer, and Aggrey Idri, a senior member of the SPLM-IO were arrested by Kenyan police in Nairobi and were handed over to South Sudan security operatives who deported them to South Sudan and killed them few days later.
Machar in his condemnation later regarding their death also blamed Kenya for failing to protect the two men despite having refugee status which requires the government of Kenya to protect them from deportation.
However, in a statement issued on Thursday, the SPLM-IO director of information and pubic relations, Puok Both Baluang denied Machar’s statement was aimed at threatening to target Kenyans in the country.
“With reference to the above, the SPLM/A (IO) has learned that a portion of H.E. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon’s (PhD), Chairman and Commander in Chief of the SPLM/A (IO), statement on the execution of comrades Aggrey Ezboni Idri and Dong Samuel Thot by the Regime, dated 30 April 2019, has regrettably been misinterpreted as a call for targeting the Kenyan citizens who are working with NGOs in South Sudan,” the opposition official said in the statement extended to the Nyamilepedia.
“Dr. Machar, through his statement, in the quest for justice for our heroes, comrades Aggrey E. Idri and Dong Samuel, has called upon the Kenyan Government to take action against the Kenyan(s) who colluded with the regime on the kidnapping of Aggrey and Dong from Nairobi, Kenya on 26 – 27 December 2016, which let to their extrajudicial execution by the regime in Luri, South Sudan,” he added.
“The SPLM/A (IO), therefore, would like to notify to all Kenyans NGOs workers, business people and traders operating in South Sudan, and the public at large that, H.E. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon (PhD) neither called for nor the SPLM/A (IO) having desire to target Kenyan citizens in South Sudan and in the SPLM/A (IO) controlled areas in particular, in a response to the iniquitous kidnapping of our comrades Aggrey E. Idri And Dong Samuel.”