Authorities in Eastern Equatoria State have confirmed that Governor Louis Lobong’s driver, Peter Lokoro, was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Sunday while driving back to Torit Town.

The deceased was returning from delivering food assistance that the government donated to support the funeral of Haforiere community police team leader, late Edir Angazi Ohoro, who was killed by Hiyalla youth on Friday last week.

Speaking during a press conference yesterday, the press secretary in the office of the governor, Oringa John Godfrey, said the driver was shot at the Idolu Bridge while returning from Haforiere village.

“On 8th November (Sunday) a vehicle belonging to the governor was ambushed and attacked when they went to Haforiere to deliver some government aid in support of the funeral that took place there because some few days back there was some conflict there in which one of the community policing leader was killed,” John said.

He said the government sent some support to the funeral as a show of gratitude for the role the late played as a community policing leader in the area collaborating with the government in fighting crime.

“It was quite unfortunate that after delivering the aid the vehicle of the governor was ambushed at Idolu bridge by unknown criminals and it was unfortunate that we lost the driver who was a soldier,” John added.

The deceased was in the company of two other colleagues who said the gunmen escaped after the shooting.

The Executive Director of Torit County, Solomon Ocuho Oxson, expressed sadness, described the incident as a criminal act, and urged communities to allow freedom of movement.

“I am extremely annoyed because such things had stopped and I don’t know what is happening again. They are trying to start ambushes again and yet it was agreed that on the way nothing like this should happen. And secondly, the national government is constructing the road and we told the people not to do such things because the road is a public facility,” he lamented. 

An activist working for a local NGO, Universal Network for Knowledge and Empowerment Agency, Oryema Emmanuel, condemned the attack and urged citizens to resort to courts of law for redress.  

“We condemn this very bad act of killing somebody moving on the road. If they have a problem with the person there is a court. Why don’t they bring the person to court instead of killing? The attackers must be having a reason for doing this and maybe they want to block the road completely. We want the government to bring the perpetrators to book,” Emmanuel said.

This is the first ambush along Torit–Hiyalla road since June when the Otuho peace taskforce and Hujang peace and reconciliation committee held a series of dialogues with communities in the now-defunct Torit East county.