Police launch probe into boda boda violence in Mauna

By Simon Deng

The South Sudan police services have launched investigation into last week’s violence that pitied commercial motor cyclists (boda boda) and the leaders of their association in the Mauna suburb of Juba.

Maj.Gen Daniel Justin Buolo, the Police Spokesman, said that the renewed clashes on Friday left one person dead and four others injured during the scuffle that paralyzed custom market due to sporadic gunfire. 

“We managed to stop the fight, they have managed to escape, we have not arrested anybody but we have opened the case, we have already identified some of the names of these people,” Buolo told the Juba Echo.

The boda boda riders who torched their association office in Mauna on the fateful day were angered by the shooting to death of one of their colleagues during previous scuffle with the leadership of the boda boda association.

Buolo said that youth of Mauna together with bodaboda riders attacked security at the bodaboda association leading to violent scuffle.

He disclosed that more than 100 motorcycles were stolen during the violence.

“During that fight, a bullet was fired because one of them was about to grab a gun from a police officer, the bullet hit an innocent 18 year-old boy who was siting somewhere far from the scene, the boy was taken to the hospital and he died around 4 o’clock in the morning,” said Buolo.