AFRICA/SOUTH SUDAN - The Bishops denounce: "Land grabbing threatens the stability of the Country"

Friday, 30 January 2015

Juba (Agenzia Fides) - "Land grabbing can lead to a break up in the country" warn the Bishops of Southern Sudan. According to Catholic Radio Network (CRN), at the end of the plenary meeting of the local Episcopal Conference, His Exc. Mgr. Paolino Lukudu Loro, Archbishop of Juba, said that "in their meeting the Bishops identified land grabbing as a potential risk of violence that the government should address critically before escalation".
"Cases of land grabbing were highly recorded in Juba, the worst of which was at Kömiru village in Northern Bari Payam in 2012 where several households were butchered by uniformed men" CRN news reported.
Since its independence in July 2011, some regions of the landlocked country have witnessed high levels of inter-ethnic violence and cattle rustling often triggered by disputes over grazing land and resources such as water.
The phenomenon of "land grabbing" has been denounced even in neighboring Kenya, where the local Bishops have urged the government "to identify and bring to book (the) so-called ‘private developers’ who are blatantly grabbing public school land and posing a threat to the education and welfare of the children". (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 30/01/2015)


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