May 14, 2020 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan’s main armed opposition group, SPLM-IO, said on Thursday that holdout opposition movement, National Salvation Front (NAS) led by General Thomas Cirilo Swaka, abducted senior members of its military wing.
The abduction, SPLA-IO deputy spokesman Col. Lam Paul Gabriel said, took place at an area in the country’s Central Equatoria state’s Yei County on Sunday after NAS rebel soldiers ambushed a vehicle traveling to a SPLA-IO base there.
“On 10/05/2020 at about 3:00PM a vehicle transporting SPLA-IO officers to the Sector 8 HQ in Wunulyet was ambushed by NAS forces at Kansuk in Kajo Keji County,” Col. Lam said in a statement on Thursday.
He said “eight (8) SPLA-IO including three senior Officers were abducted by the attackers.”
Lam who is also the press secretary for the defense minister Brigadier Genera Sammy Logeleng, Brigadier Clement Samila and Colonel Wokil Peter were among those abducted urging the Cirilo-led rebel group to release them.
“The SPLA-IO calls upon NAS leadership to release those officers to a neutral body as soon as possible,” Lam said.
He further urged South Sudan’s peace monitoring bodies of “CTSAMM and UNMISS to investigate this violation and brings those responsible to account.”
