Kenya launches probe into S. Sudan over deaths of aid workers

By Lynace Mwashighadi

The Kenyan government has launched a probe into the murder of four Kenyans in South Sudan. 

The four who were among six people butchered in an ambush by unknown assailants in South Sudan were traveling from Juba to Pibor a town in the eastern part of the country.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the four who were among six workers of GREDO, a local NGO funded by Unicef.

The Kenyan government saying it is engaging all stakeholders in the probe in efforts to unearth the circumstances that led to their death.

According to a dispatch from the ministry of foreign affairs, the Kenyan government is in contact with both the Embassy in Juba and South Sudan’s in Nairobi to establish further details on the incident.

Efforts to bring back bodies of the four Kenyans who were murdered last week on Saturday are ongoing even as a probe into their killings gets underway.

 

Foreign Affairs Minister Ambassador Amina Mohammed says the government will facilitate the coordinated transportation of the bodies back to Kenya for burial.

At the moment, South Sudan security agents and officials from GREDO and Unicef are working to recover the bodies.

The country, which split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of conflict, has been mired in civil war since President Salva Kiir sacked rebel leader Riek Machar in 2013.

The fighting has forced three million people to flee their homes, split much of the population along ethnic lines and paralysed agriculture, leaving the country facing famine.

The tragedy of the four Kenyans comes even as four other Kenyans remain detained in South Sudanese .

The ministry which is on record on March 14 as saying that it will not abandon the four Kenyans jailed in South Sudan is yet to procure their release.