Members of Salva Kiir’s presidential guard force on Thursday beat and detained a freelance journalist who reports for Bloomberg news agency in South Sudan’s capital city Juba.

The journalists Mading Ngor said he was driving home on Thursday at about 10:00 p.m. when he was stopped by a man wearing civilian clothes in the Jebel neighborhood.

Mading says he thought the man was a carjacker.

“On my way back home, a man wearing civilian clothes suddenly emerged near the road I was driving in, apparently pointing a gun at me. I panicked. I immediately concluded that I was dealing with a carjacker.”

After speeding away from the non-uniformed gunman, he was then stopped by uniformed members of the Presidential Guard.

“I was asked to get out of the car. As soon as I alighted, several of them started to slap me in the cheeks and head till I felt numb. Some began to search through the car. I was then dragged around by the group to their barracks.”

Upon reaching the barracks the soldiers took the journalist’s wallet, phones, belt, car key’s and sandals. “Some of the soldiers wanted to beat me up some more but the prison warden refused.”

Mading Ngor recounted spending the night in detention. In the early morning on Friday his possessions were returned except the rear number plate of his car, which he said was removed. He was then released. 

The journalist said he was “a civilian at the wrong place, at the wrong hour.”

He says he has chosen not to file a civil suit against those who abused him, but noted that he has a right to “raise public awareness about the matter to prevent it from ever happening to someone else.”

File photo: SPLA Presidential Guard commander Marial Chanuong

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