By William Garang
Bosco Bush, a journalist for the local daily No.1 Citizen, shared a gripping account of how he and six other passengers narrowly escaped a harrowing road ambush on Saturday. The attack occurred along the Yei-Juba Road in Mankaro, a part of Loka Boma in Lainya County, Central Equatoria State. Bush, who had traveled to Yei two weeks earlier to visit his family, was en route back to Juba when their vehicle was ambushed at gunpoint. The passengers were forcibly removed from the car in a life-threatening ordeal.
“I was en route to Juba from Yei after traveling over 20 miles. We fell in an ambush by armed men. In our car, there were six of us onboard the Premio Toyota car,” said Bosco
A once happy trip now turns into a nightmare at 11:00 am that faithful Saturday as unknown armed men walk them to the bush with their hands held up high. “It was like a horror movie displayed in real life,” said Mr. Bush.
“Reaching a place called Mankaro around the Loka area, there is this forest. So, those guys appeared from the bush and stopped us at gunpoint and told the driver to stop and told all of us to get out of the car,” Bush said, ‘There were four women and two children in that doomed Saturday’s incident” He continued
“Getting out from the car, we were told to raise our hands up, and they diverted us to the bush,” he narrated.
“After moving 30 meters, they told us to sit down. So, we sat down, and they told us to remove our trousers and clothes. In which we started removing them with the exception of women,” he added.
The No.1 Citizen reporter stated that he was in a traumatic condition, and it would be hard to erase what had happened in his mind. He lost his working gadgets, which are hard to obtain.
“I am a walking dead, actually, and I am a bit traumatized to recover from this situation,” he lamented.
He cited that they left their belonging in the car, and some elements of armed men took their belongings, including money, laptops, and phones, before another car, a Tipper, fell into the trap, too.
“They tell another group (armed men) to stop that car, it was instantly stopped, and they did the same things they did to us, and they were brought to join us approximately six people,” he narrates
“We started moving inside the bush. They took us a distance of about 40 minutes, barefooted. Remember, all our clothes and shoes were removed [only left with underwear] when we reached another stage, they told us to sit down,”
To journalist Bush, the unknown gunmen informed them to continue with a journey before the sound of a gunshot deafened their ears. That was a turning point as they were to run for their dear life.
“They told us to move again. After moving a distance, we heard some gunshots from behind,” he recalled.
“Where we were robbed, there were some nearby barracks of the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF). I think they got the information and started shooting in the air,” he explained.
“For me, when I heard the bullet, I thought maybe the armed men have started shooting some of the hostages who were behind because I was in the middle,” he added.
“When they heard the shooting, they told us to scatter, everyone should run now. So, we started running, and then we stopped each other and said, let go slowly, slowly,”
Bush said that when he reached the main road again, he borrowed a pair of trousers before a boda-boda rider dropped him off at Lainya. There, he met the commissioner and head of security and narrated what had happened.
He added that the army forces in Loka were immediately alert, and they went to the incident scene.
Bush called on those unknown gunmen to stop attacking civilians along the roads. He also appealed to the government to bring holdout groups through Tumaini on board so that recurring road attacks might cease.